Guilty Pleasures #50 - Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Last year, I reviewed Kingsman: The Secret Service. An over the top and flamboyant movie but with clever humour and dialogue, with good actors delivering it that made it all seem worthwhile. It spoofed some of the spy clichés, although it did revel in plenty of its own. But I was on board for every second of it.

A sequel is out, and it made about the same amount of money, around $410m although this had a slightly higher budget of $104m. Critically this movie was less well received, 52% on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score 65%, with average ratings 5.3/10 and 3.6/5 respectively. But where do I stand? Let’s take a look:

We open at the Kingsman Tailor shop, one of the Kingsman HQ’s, Eggsy is just leaving when he bumps into Charli Esketh, the Kingsman applicant that didn’t make it and turned traitor in the end. If Eggsy’s glasses didn’t confirm this I'd swear they were different people, they do not look alike, but then it’s been a few years. He holds a gun to Eggsy and it’s revealed he has a team backing him up. This being right in front of Kingsman headquarters, I’m surprised Eggsy didn’t too. Either way, he forces Charli into the car, orders his driver to drive and the two begin to tussle.

Plus points for quickly establishing an action scene, bonus points if it’s relevant later. Spoiler alert, it is. The fight quickly reveals that the taser in Eggsy’s ring, which was used against him last time, no longer has any effect. Also, Charli has a robotic arm now that deflects bullets, robotic arms are everywhere, aren’t they? The driver is killed when Charli breaks a piece off Eggsy’s poison foot blade, resulting in a crash that sends him flying through the window, sans his arm.

But the backup cars are still in play, and Eggsy takes wheel himself, and of course those bastards have turrets on the roof. Eggsy contacts Merlin but with civilians all around them, they can’t engage with their own weapons. Merlin gives him a route, so Eggsy can clear civilian traffic, not before he puts a whole bunch of them at risk though. They enter Hyde park and he finally gets permission to fire his tank missile and blow up the cars.  

With police finally catching up, his only route back to base is in the lake, rather unfortunate when your windscreen is smashed and you’re down a door. The car can turn into a submarine, that’s a thing. Eggsy blatantly has his mouth open whilst he’s underwater, he’s very, very dead right now. His corpse enters the base and how did he survive? Anyway, with the police still combing the park, and Eggsy having a dinner date, his only way out is in the sewers, which are actually full of the disgusting sludge you find in sewers, rather than the empty streams you see in most movies.

But, it’s not over as Charli’s robotic arm begins accessing the computer in Eggsy’s car. Turns out the dinner is for Brandon, one of Eggsy’s friends and a chance to see Eggsy in his London chav clothing, the stuff he was wearing at the beginning of the first movie. And it’s about time to mention Eggsy’s girlfriend, Tilde, the Princess of Sweden. I wonder how Eggsy ever managed to sell that to his friends.

“Here’s my new girlfriend, she’s a princess. How did we meet? Erm, you might wanna sit down for this one”

Anyway, I thought she was a bond girl-esque joke in the last movie so kudos for keeping her around. He’s meeting the royal family tomorrow, and Brandon agrees to look after Eggy’s dog so hijinks can ensue. We cut through a bag of weed and transition to the villain of this story, Poppy (Julianne Moore) and if you thought Samuel L Jackson was hamming it up in the last movie, you are correct in thinking that but Julianne Moore is doing the same thing for her villain. She’s the leader of the biggest drug cartel in the world, and lives in the ‘middle of nowhere,’ away from prying eyes.

We get narration in the context of Poppy giving a welcome speech to a new job applicant. His name is Angel, and was brought to the island by ‘lifelong friend’ Charles. Charles is sporting a golden circle branding, hence the title. Wanting to see if he’s loyal, he tells Angel that Charles has messed up on something, and orders him to be put in the mincer. He tries to escape but Poppy has 2 robot dogs. Angel decides to betray his life-long friend and stuff him in the mincer, we don’t see the blood thankfully, but we do see the human mince come out. He’s told to head off to get his makeover as Poppy creates a burger from the mince and begins to cook it.

Tilde wants to run through table manners with him, but Eggsy remembers covering the same thing with Harry and heads off to work. Apparently they live in Harry’s house now, that’s just weird. Back at Kingsman, it’s time for the debrief. Turns out the implant Charli had in his head was damaged by Eggsy with the electrocution and somehow took only his arm and vocal cords. I…

Somehow the police found bodies from the cars that Eggsy blew up, but the people inside had their fingerprints removed and teeth filed, and didn’t show up on facial recognition, I imagine because their faces took a full explosion. Anyway, they also have the Golden Circle brand. We see Angel get his teeth filed and fingerprints removed, and the golden tattoo, all done by a robot. He returns to Poppy, now shirtless, and is presented with a burger, likely made from the mince of his ‘lifelong friend’ he eventually overcomes his need to gag and takes a bite.

Time for dinner with the Royal Family, turns out Eggsy’s Swedish is a bit rusty? So they decide to converse in English. They make some small-talk as Eggsy has his glasses to guide him through some of the trickier questions. His answers feel kinda generic and might cotton some people on to what his game is. He’s asked about Bluetooth, and goes into a diatribe about the origin of the word…

Talking in his ear, somehow, is Roxy, Eggsy’s friend and fellow Kingsman or should that be Kingswoman? Anyway, she’s also researching the Golden Circle and finding evidence of people involved in very criminal activities. Back at Eggsy’s place, Brandon discovers Eggsy’s arsenal and takes a shining to the glasses for some reason, putting them on and seeing Eggsy’s royal dinner. Eggsy is soon onto this and hijinks ensue? Well maybe a single hijink as Brandon nearly blows the house to smithereens but Eggsy stops him, at much inconvenience to himself. Silly Brandon, you don’t need to blow up the house, there’s a missile heading right for you to do that. Oh, by the way, a missile blows up the house, killing Brandon and, sadly, the dog too.

Eggsy sees this and soon there’s one heading to the Kingsman manor as well and I don’t know what that missile hit but it blows the whole place up and sinks it into the ground in a series of cascading explosions. So, Roxy’s down and soon the shop itself becomes a target, killing off Michael Gambon. Poppy and Charli celebrate with a game of 10 pin bowling. She presents him a new arm, a more advanced and powerful version, something he demonstrates by throwing his bowling bowl through the wall. She calls is arm-ageddon, because she's that kind of villain. 

Eggsy stands at the remains of the Tailor shop and sees that Merlin also survived somehow. Merlin also has Charli’s old arm and works out that it hacked them remotely. Merlin decides to go through with the doomsday that Eggsy somehow doesn’t know about. They head wine tasting and unlock a secret compartment that of course is there, inside is a bottle of Statesman whiskey.

They begin drinking, toasting each of their fallen comrades. The excessive alcohol has left Merlin upset and blaming himself a bit, something which you’d think Eggsy would also be doing also seeing as the arm went into the base in his car. Anyway, they find a message in the bottle that prompts them to head to Kentucky.

I’ll state what I think of them killing everyone off like this later on, but now we cut to Statesman distillery. They discover a bio-metrically secured door, and hack their way in, finding barrels of whiskey and are encountered by Channing Tatum playing Agent Tequilla. He isn't convinced that they are who they say they are and proves that he’s able to take them both out.

He ties them to a chair and interrogates them, thinking this is a rescue mission for one lepidopterist. He pours alcohol all over them and prepares to set them on the fire, but they tell him to p*ss off, he then shows that Harry is in the room next door. He was shot in the head and point-blank range and somehow he’s alive, although wearing an eye-patch, their explanation had better be good. Tequilla is about to shoot him when they’re saved by Agent Ginger Ale (Halle Berry) their story checked out, which means Agent Tequilla was being a moron.

Now untied, they visit Harry but he’s lost his memory. So, that explanation. Statesman didn’t bother stopping Jackson for some reason but they did drop in just after Harry was shot and uses an alpha-gel pack to protect the brain, and then nanites to fix the damage. Yeah… this is a tough one to get past, I’m OK with it, since this is already a pretty goofy movie but I can understand if it’s a step too far for some people.

Speaking of steps too far, we have a scene to establish 2 things, 1^st that the perimeter of Poppy’s layer is coated in landmines, and 2^nd, that she’s captured Elton John and is forcing him to perform for her under pain of death. Apparently, she caught Elton during the period that Valentine was abducting celebrities too. They notice a blue rash underneath his chin, and he admits to having partied with Angel.

Eggsy’s taken to a room to converse with the other Statesman, lead by Champagne ‘Champ’ (Jeff Bridges) who puts Statesman’s resources at their disposal, where they were when Valentine was putting bombs in everyone I shudder to think. Anyway, Eggsy’s been tracking the girlfriend of Charli on social media; apparently, she’s at Glastonbury. Tequila is about to be sent off but apparently Tatum didn’t get a big enough pay check, so he’s got blue vein syndrome, and is replaced by Agent Whiskey (Pedro Pascal)   

Back to Ginger Ale and Merlin, it’s suggested that a traumatic memory from his past may trigger his memories. So, they flood his room, it doesn’t seem to work. I suspect he has many questions now, either way, he wants to go home. Tilde shows Eggsy a new pug she got for him, too soon, man, too soon. So, the plan is they basically have to inject a tracker into the target’s vagina. All the dignity of America there.

Agent Whiskey’s flirting attempts are frankly painful, which sadly means Eggsy has to be the one to do it, much to his discomfort. He attempts to phone Tilde and ask for permission but she does not take it well. The difference, aside from the fact Whiskey is clearly too old for her, Eggsy did research on the target. No wonder Statesman were so far behind on the Valentine case.

Back with Ginger Ale and Merlin, they’ve brought Tequilla to the sick bay and discovered a lot of people are having blue rashes, with the only thing connecting them being recreational drug use. Merlin asks if it could be connected to the Golden Circle but Ginger Ale doesn’t think it’s likely given that means they’d be poisoning their own customers. Poppy laments that whilst she has the riches to make Scrooge McDuck jealous, she has to hide out because she sells drugs. She then sends her robot dogs to maul Angel to death.

With the tracker applied, we cut back to Harry, preparing to leave. Eggsy returns and makes his attempt to revive his memory. His attempt is also unsuccessful. And he goes to drown his sorrows in a bar, it’s bar, of course the bloody sequence is gonna happen, just not yet. Tilde has gone wild and started smoking sh*t, ignoring Eggsy’s attempts at reconciliation. Seeing a dog thing in the bar gives him an idea. He takes a cute little dog to Harry, and then points a gun at it. Hearkening back to the final stage of Kingsman initiation. This appears to work and Harry regains his memories. He’s given a hacking watch and a new pair of glasses with one eye blacked out.

And we’re back at the bar so I guess it’s time. The jerks’ timing is so on the nose, I’d swear this is staged. Unfortunately when you have only one eye, perspective can be a little off, or in the case of Harry here, it’s a deliberate stalling attempt because he’s seeing butterflies. You know what we want to see, movie, Eggsy and Harry working together, let’s get on with it now! Whiskey takes over and uses his lasso and whip to take the guys out.

At this exact moment, Poppy decides to exposit her plan via a ransom video played on TV, but aimed at the President of the United States. Given the President in this movie is clearly a Trump allegory, makes sense he’d be watching TV. Her virus is in all drugs, including the type Eggsy’s friends are taking, Blue Rash is the initial symptom, mania the second stage followed by muscular paralysis that would ultimately kill the victim in a gory fashion. But she has an antidote that she administers to Elton John. Wow, that antidote takes hold fast.

She wants all drugs to made legal, but taxed and regulated as per alcohol and the like, if these conditions are met, she’ll release the antidote. With more and more rash cases coming, there are riots at hospitals which are filled to capacity. Eggsy’s friend and Tequilla both begin displaying mania, Ginger Ale prep’s a cryo unit to keep Tequilla alive. The President is in talks with both the members of his cabinet. His response is to pretend to be acquiescing to her demands but really just stalling so they can kill off all the drug users. They’re deploying military and martial law and press blackouts, all things that would totally not cause mass panic, and are going to round them up.

Charli’s girlfriend makes a call on a payphone and they’re able to listen in, she’s got the blue rash, and Charli tells her to go to Italy to get the antidote. So, Harry, Eggsy and Whiskey head off. Charli gives his girl the antidote that if you weren’t convinced before that the antidote works in seconds, you will be now. Unfortunately, they make an excuse for Harry to be excluded from the lab infiltration, needing him to secure the gondola.

They find the lab, but Charli recognises Eggsy and that it’s left slip that he fingered his girlfriend. They get an antidote but Harry is having another episode at the controls. That’s resolved but it doesn’t buy them much time as Charli has the door open. Charli overrides the cable car and it begins to spin at speed. Not sure why that’s necessary feature in a cable car but… In addition to the spinning, the car begins rocking, but Whiskey has a solution, his whip can be laser powered, because why not... They cut the cables and the car sleds down the mountain with destruction following close behind. They’re heading towards a retirement home, at the bottom of a ski slope, but Eggsy deploys Whiskey’s parachute to stop the car in time.

They meet at a shack, Eggsy still has the antidote, but some guys approach all armed and in getting him out of the way, Whiskey knocks the antidote out of Eggsy’s hand and smashes it. This has Harry convinced something is wrong, although Eggsy doesn’t yet see it. Whiskey take out all the guys, using his laser lasso to tear then in half. But with him out of ammo, and a lot more guys en-route, Harry decides now is the best time to shoot Whiskey. Harry uses a Kingsman grenade to encapsulate the men in blue putty… wait, what?

Eggsy uses the alpha-gel on Whiskey, and Charli blows up the lab. Turns out Whiskey’s a massive sexist too, how annoying. Anyway, they follow up on a lead as one of the President’s aids is revealed to have blue rashes and is stuffed in a cage in the middle of a sports arena. If word got out about this, there’d be riots at the President’s door. Eggsy gets a phone-call and we see here that Tilde too is getting blue veins. You’d think being a princess, one that’s already been captured I might add, she’d have better security.

With this motivating them, they’re quickly en-route in a statesman aircraft. Harry and Eggsy discuss relationship and clearly his near death experience has softened him on the idea. And Kingsman is basically dead at this point so f*ck their rules about relationships anyway. Time to arm up, unfortunately Whiskey is woken up at this point, and quickly brought back to sanity thanks to his dead girlfriend. So weapons, the usual Kingsman stuff, a briefcase, a serum of some sort, a minesweeper/baseball bat and a big knife.

Time for the endgame, Eggsy accidentally triggers a landmine, Merlin uses a freeze spray to disarm the mine long enough to take position on the mine in his place. So, Merlin is gonna die, and since it isn’t by shotgun, I’m guessing the alpha gel isn’t gonna work. He begins singing, alerting the perimeter guards to approach rather than just shooting him. He steps off the mine and kills the guards as well as himself.

Time for what we’ve been waiting the entire movie for. Harry and Eggsy fighting side by side. Oh and Elton John gets his bit too. I bet he’s having the time of his life in this scene. I love this scene, it’s gruesome, it has robots, it has a bola taking out electric grenades and has Elton John wearing feathers, what’s not to love.

Charli heads off with the case, with Eggsy in pursuit, whilst Poppy sets the dogs on Harry. Eggsy takes a pounding from Charli as Harry is saved by Elton John. Eggsy, though, was just stalling long enough to hack the arm. Poppy orders a kill on Elton, but he and Harry work together to defeat him. Poppy sends out dog 2 as Charli detaches his arm, Eggsy offers to fight him with a hand behind his back. Harry uses the gold to take down the second dog. Eggsy easily beats Charlie hand-to-hand and breaks his neck when he finds that he doesn’t have the code to release the antidote.

Poppy is injected with a synthesised version of her poison and gives the code before dying without the blood. But before they can enter the code, Whiskey interferes. He’s a moron who believes that without hundreds of millions of people who could potentially be buying their product the share price of Statesman would be sent rocketing. That’s a lame, nonsensical motivation, so they do add that his wife was killed by a junkie.

This is a really good action scene, showing how the two can work together against a single, if much stronger opponent, and since the mincer was obviously a Chekhov’s gun, it plays a significant role in the action scene and in the end, Whiskey gets thrown into the mincer. Thankfully, no-one’s around to make a burger out of that. They release the antidote and the President gets arrested for... Something pretty much instantly. If only, America, if only…

Champ announces he’s building a distillery in Scotland, which will fund rebuilding Kingsman, and focus on a new partnership between Kingsman and Statesman. They offer Eggsy and Harry a chance to be the new Whiskey but without his sexist sh*t interfering, Ginger Ale throws her own hat into the ring. Besides, Eggsy and Harry are literally the only two members of Kingsman left, lot to rebuild on their own.

And we end with Eggsy and Tilde finally getting married. He’s officially a Prince now, and Elton John is there too for reasons. Anyway, the Tailor shop is rebuilt and new agents begin to make their approach.

And that was Kingsman: The Golden Circle. It was over the top, bombastic, even silly in places and I absolutely love it!

A lot of it is down to the performances, they’re just the right amount of over the top to sell this story, and it makes what really shouldn’t work, work in my eyes. Add to that the hyper-stylised but energetic action scenes with half-decent special effects (given the budget) that doesn’t shy away from the gore but doesn’t revel in it either.

Seeing Harry and Eggsy finally working together as equals was glorious to behold, the action in the finale is the most fun Kingsman has delivered to date. It’s a shame it took so long, but it allowed some character development for Merlin as he pushes himself further and further into the spotlight.

Clearing the slate at the opening as always going to be a controversial move. But Roxy is the only character that died that we had any prior investment in, well, her and JB, the dog. They tried with Brandon but no…

Could you call it a fridging? Yes, and it does feel a bit odd that they got Michael Gambon in for a 5-minute cameo, but you could argue that's the same as what Chaning Tatum got. It’s a problem but it doesn’t spoil the movie for me.

Rating -35%