I really enjoyed the original _Kingsman: The Secret Service_ (2015). It took itself just seriously enough to poke fun at the spy thriller genre, but with tongue firmly in cheek. Though over-the-top in parts, it never went too far. The story stayed grounded enough to be an effective genre buster. Come for the action, stay for the riffs on James Bond.

_Kingsman: The Golden Circle_, though… There's a certain irony to this film's "Manners maketh man" scene, considering how poor its characters' manners are. The words "fuck", "shit", and so on absolutely litter the script. Sometimes a single line of dialogue manages to cram in half a dozen. I'm not sure even a single character escaped the "Fuck" train. Pretty much everyone seems to say it at least once.

Honestly, the writing just came across as lazy. That's yet another irony, because I'm sure the writers were working harder than ever trying to repeat the first film's formula and create a worthy sequel. Sadly, they failed. Cursing doesn't make a joke funny—unless it's already funny, then _maybe_ a well-timed "Fuck!" can restart the giggles when they begin to subside.

The film's treatment of its female characters didn't help my opinion, either. Everyone doing anything of the "saving the world" variety was a man. Now, I'm a man too, and one of the things I really appreciated about 2015's _Kingsman_ film was Roxy. I thought having a female spy working alongside Eggsy et al was part of the genre-busting, given that women usually only get "damsel in distress" roles in classic spy flicks. But in this go-around, Roxy isn't part of the picture ([spoiler]she's taken out along with all the other Kingsman agents near the beginning[/spoiler]) and I'm afraid Ginger Ale—Halle Berry's real character name \*gag\*—couldn't make up for that.

All of this—plus the cheap-looking CGI—made for a very long 141 minutes.

Allegedly, the next Kingsman film (due out next year) won't even have Eggsy in it. This film [spoiler]killed off Merlin[/spoiler]. I'm not sure what results the producers are expecting by replacing basically the entire core cast, considering what happened after they dumped most of them already for this go-around. I'll probably still watch the next film, but I expect it will be as bad as this one, if not worse.

EDIT: After seeing this a second time it is still a lot of fun with over the top action and humor. Still needs more Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges.

First off, if you didn't like the first then this one isn't going to win you over. It is the same crazy action with some dirty humor and over the top plot. There aren't many movies that have the same stylized action scenes like Kingsman (even though there wasn't a scene like the church scene from the first). All the cast were great included the great Elton John. Not as great as the first, which I think is one of the best action movies of the last decade, but still a worthy follow up and I can't wait for the sequel.

Now for some spoilers:
[spoiler]I'm sad that they killed Roxy so quickly. If they can bring Harry back I hope they bring her back in the third. I laughed my ass off when I saw that Eggsy was dating the princess who let him do it in the asshole. By the end of the movie he married her and now is a prince, I wonder how that will play into the next. I thought Merlin's death was sad but built up very well and that led into the best scene of the movie. Julianne Moore's villain wasn't as good as Samuel L. Jackson's but I still thought she had some creepy style. Needed more statesman. We got a lot of Pedro Pascal but not enough Jeff Bridges and Channing Tatum, maybe next movie.[/spoiler]

This _Kingsman_ sequel might not be an outright terrible movie, but it is a **massive** disappointment. Virtually every enjoyable aspect of the first movie has been either turned down to and unsatisfyingly low level, or blasted way the fuck up into the realm of off-putting nonsense. _The Golden Circle_ somehow manages to both underserve all of its elements, while still feeling far too long. A couple of good fights, nice suits and maybe a single laugh can be found throughout the movie, but it does not do the original one iota of justice.

_Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._

This is indeed a silly, even childish at time, movie but to me it was also a really really fun movie to watch.

The movie starts by the Kingsman organisation getting screwed over royally by the psychopathic Poppy Adams which forces what remains of the organisation, all two people, to work with their counterpart in the United States. Just as the Kingsmen are parodies on the stiff upper lip British gentleman the Statesmen are parodies of the southern US gentleman (if you can actually call them that) only even more so. Maybe it is my European heritage but I personally feel the Kingsmen are fairly cool where the drawling Statesmen are more on the silly side.

Once again Eggsy is the main character although I have to say that I personally like Harry, the original Galahad, much more. He has much more charisma, elegans and smarts. Since he is portrayed on the movie posters I guess it is not much of a spoiler when I say that, to my delight, the rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated. Unfortunately Eggsy is sometimes quite cool and plays his British gentleman role quite well and sometimes he is just dumb as a doornail.

Poppy Adams is okay but she is bordering on the ludicrous too much for my taste. The we have a certain English artist, a Sir no less. I do not know how much they had to pay to get him to take part in this movie but I am fairly sure I would consider it too much. He was just silly as far as I am concerned.

The movie is of course loaded with gadgets, most of them of the variety that makes noises of varying levels of loudness usually resulting in one or more bad guys biting the dust. It is almost gadget overload but I really liked. Sometimes this amount of totally unbelievable gadgets is dragging down the movie more than anything but in this one it was mostly a success. To me Harry and the gadgetry is what makes this movie.

Given that I am originally from Sweden I have mixed feelings about Eggsy’s girlfriend and the Swedish royalties. I guess those parts were okay but I could have been without them as well. At least I feel that however wrote the scene with the “royal” dinner could have read up on Swedish etiquette. Knocking on a glass with your spoon, knife or fork means you are about to give a speech, NOT that you want the plates to be changed. A professional servant, and the Swedish royalty DO have professional servants, do not need to be told when to change plates.

The actual story is, well it is original at least but I would not rate it any higher than okay. It served as a vehicle for stringing together all the stunts and jokes so it served its purpose. The worst part of the story was that I was actually finding myself agreeing with the president. This might perhaps shock some people but I am sorry, if you are dumb enough to ingest that crap, which is also highly illegal, then I have no sympathy for you.

If you get upset about stupid plot details and plot holes then be prepared to be upset. There are plenty of them in this movie. To me it did not matter too much since this is not really a thriller or drama. It is a spy parody / comedy. Having said that it did piss me off a bit that this advanced organisation did not have brains enough to deal with the piece of equipment left in the London cab at the beginning of the movie. I mean, it was just soo obvious what would happen.

Anyway, on the whole this movie was great fun to watch. I hope we get another sequel. Perhaps one with a Japanese version of the Kingsmen? There ought to be plenty of cultural stereotypes to play on there.