Film Review: Kingsman: The Golden Circle

I've been so excited for this movie, from the moment they announced that it was being made. I really enjoyed the first film, as far as comedic-violent action films go.

The trailer looked incredible and just had me more excited to see this, so we booked tickets as soon as we were able to. I would have loved to go on opening night, which was Wednesday, but we weren't able to go that night and I was at Book Club on the Thursday, so we went on Friday evening.

We went to quite an early showing for a Friday evening, at 6pm. When we arrived at our local Cineworld, I got myself a pumpkin spice frappuccino and headed to our screen with our tickets.

This part isn't about the film, it's about the cinema. I just want to praise my local Cineworld staff who dealt with some rather difficult people. They were teenagers, who were asked for ID as the film was a 15 and they now have to ask everyone as they go into the screen. They said that they'd been allowed to buy the tickets. The staff then tried to explain that people who are over 15 have bought tickets and then passed them on to people who are underage, so they need to see ID when tickets are purchased and when they are going through to the screen. It's also true for those who buy tickets online, because anyone of any age can do that.

So, I just want to say how well the staff dealt with those people, as they tried to explain what year they were in at school (which means nothing and is not proof of age). They had a big group of teenagers to talk to and they dealt with it really well.

Anyway, on with the review...

 

The film is very similar to the first one (no spoilers, don't worry!) There is action, explosions, one villain who has an issue with the Kingsman and all of the characters (minus the dead ones - obviously) returning from the first film.

Not everything is the same though, we still get some new characters played by some pretty big names in the world of Hollywood. I thought Channing Tatum looked great in the trailer and was excited to see what part he played. I will give you one piece of advice: If you're going to see this film purely for Channing Tatum, then you'll probably be disappointed to find he isn't in it very much.

As a whole, the cast was great. It was brilliant to see Colin Firth back, although he's only really prominent towards the end of the movie too, so don't expect to see him back and fighting from the beginning either.

Taron Egerton is definitely the star of the movie. He's just as entertaining in this film as he was in the previous one. I also love Mark Strong. He's a brilliant actor and I've loved most films that he's been in (I say most because there was that horrific film with Sacha Baron Cohen that will haunt me forever... What a terrible movie!)

I've got to mention the action/fight scenes that we see in this film. The best - in my opinion - were the opening scene when one of the ex-Kingsman applicants returns for Eggsy and a pretty epic car chase scene follows and the final portion of the film that sees Colin Firth and Taron Egerton fighting side-by-side.

I have to make a special mention here about a world-famous singer too. Now, I won't tell you who that singer is, if you haven't seen the film then this won't make any sense at all, but just know that I didn't know this superstar would fit into this movie. Keep an eye out for him! If you have seen the film, I'd love to know what you thought of them adding this megastar to the cast.

I'd rate this film:

Overall, I enjoyed this film. I can't decide if I liked it as much as the first movie or not, but they are definitely close to one another because they are so similar. There were some new additions, but generally it was pretty much the same kind of film as the first. The only things that let it down for me were the fact that some cast members were underused, such as Channing Tatum, and that there was one intimate scene that I definitely could have lived without. I've spoken to a few people about this film and they said exactly the same thing about this scene and how it wasn't necessary. Those same people were also disappointed in how much we saw Channing Tatum.

But I have read that we are getting a third film and that Channing Tatum will be back, so hopefully we see something different and this doesn't become one of those films that overdoes it.