'Kingsman' sequel an action-packed but preposterous horror/spy mashup
You can tell an action movie has jumped the sprocket holes when its best scene offers peacock-attired Elton John going full-out Kung Fu Panda all over a poor villainous henchman.
A raging, foul-mouthed Elton marks one of many oozing-with-desperation devices used in “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” the amped-up sequel to Matthew Vaughn's 2015 “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” adapted from the comic book.
“Golden Circle” offers more of what the first “Kingsman” already gave us - preposterously spectacular stunts and chases, overused slow-motion cliché shots and counterproductive near-freeze-frames that actually break the lightning momentum of the aforementioned outrageous stunts and chases.
The movie mixes a horror film virus premise with a goofy James Bond parody right down to mimicking the snowy battles of “On Her Majesty's Secret Service” accompanied by the best 007 score never used in a Bond adventure.
Super capitalist villain CEO Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore, channeling her sweetly prim 1950s housewife in “Far From Heaven”) has laced the world's illegal drugs with a virus that turns veins blue and kills in four easy stages.
If the U.S. president (Bruce Greenwood) forks over her demands, Poppy will instantly dispense the antidote all over the world.
But the prez sees this as a great opportunity to win the war on drugs by letting millions of infected users die. Good riddance.
Young Kingsman spy Eggsy Unwin (reprised by Taron Egerton, whose boyish countenance appears to be fading) has carried on without his beloved mentor, gentleman spy Harry Hart (Colin Firth), previously shot dead through the head in the first film.
That Harry miraculously survived shouldn't be a surprise, as commercials and trailers have already ruined this twist. And Harry's not the only “dead” person pulling a Jon Snow resurrection on us here.
Poppy mass assassinates (massassinates?) all but two of the Kingsman (at least until the next movie), leaving Eggsy and the group's loyal armorer Merlin (Mark Strong) the only hope to stop the Popp.
But wait. There is another. In fact, many others.
The Kingsman's American counterparts, the Statesman, operating a whiskey plant in Kentucky, pledge to help.
Jeff Bridges does little more than sniff cigars and coast through his dialogue as the Statesman boss, supervising his agents Tequila (Channing Tatum), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) and Ginger Ale (Halle Berry).
Some of the action segments in “The Golden Circle” come on so strong and wild with such precision choreography that the audience at a Chicago screening Monday night broke into small applause.
This could have been one constantly surprising, rip-roaring, go-for-the-jugular action movie.
But Vaughn apparently couldn't bear to cut its sluggish, 141-minute running time down to fighting weight.
The result? A banal marathon of a movie periodically popping with humor, shocks, fantastic sets, Elton John costumes, plus more John Denver songs than in Channing Tatum's last movie, “Logan Lucky.”
“Kingsman: The Golden Circle”
★ ★
Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Julianne Moore, Mark Strong, Elton John, Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges, Channing Tatum
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Other: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated R for drug use, language, sexual situations, violence. 141 minutes