Kingsman: The Golden Circle: The Sequel NO ONE asked for

For those of you who just couldn't be bothered to see it or the rest of you who see Matthew Vaughn's name next to a movie and black out because he's not the most recognizable name, 2014's Kingsman: The Secret Service might have been one of the most entertaining, irreverent and psychotic action comedies of the last few years that sold its premise (lisping meglomaniac trying to take over the world) simply by taking a played out genre trope (overly courteous British agents) and blowing it all up with well-timed bouts of humor that tended to hit more than they missed (you will either love or hate the big finale; no middle ground). Regardless of where you stand on the film's merits, it was an honest take on an under-read comic book and, by the grace of Vaughn, sold itself for every cringe-worthy setpiece and joke it could muster. How does Vaughn follow-up his arguably best movie? By making a sequel no one asked for. This is the part where the world groaning about sequels starts to have a little more hold than usual.

Sadly, despite its pedigree, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a movie with literally no reason to exist in any form. Not only does it expand too much beyond its comic book origins (which were already stretched thin with the original movie) but the premise (meglomaniac without lisp tries to take over the world) and the iconic action sequences of the original (the Colin Firth fight) are cribbed almost verbatim from its prequel. The narrative doesn't flow, the new characters feel like an old Oscar nomination check sheet for the sake of name recognition and the movie makes commits the cardinal sin of relying too much on its predecessor to fill its own plot holes. Kingsman worked fine as a stand alone movie BECAUSE it didn't need or promise any sequels in an era made up of little else.

Fortunately, if you can escape the inevitable deja vu of a movie trying too hard to recapture its glory from its superior big brother, there are small gems to find. Pedro Pascal's Whiskey is a fun, almost endearing character bogged down only by a late-game plot dump that seemed forced by the two hour-plus movie somehow running out of time. And, despite being a prime example of gimmick casting in a movie full of it, Elton John was both funny and wildly entertaining as a warped parody of himself. Say what you will about the man, seeing a 70-year-old, feather-laden musician kick a bad guy in the face with platform shoes while slyly winking at the camera almost makes the insulting nature of the joke funnier than it should be. See? Gratuitous overkill CAN be awesome if it sells it right.

As for watching it...just go watch the original and be happy you didn't fall for all the advertisements about the sequel being some kind of awesome expansion on the canon of the now pointless series. Better yet, just wait a few months and randomly search “Elton John fighting” and you'll likely stumble across the only aspect of this movie that warrants any of your time. Seriously, has the “good” movie season started yet?

Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class) makes what can only be described as his first truly awful movie with Kingsman: The Golden Circle, a bloated, overly self-referential experiment in cinematic overkill that takes the good will of its predecessor and wastes it all trying to make you watch the same movie you saw three years ago with more moving parts and worse plotting. Having been rebuilt after the events of the first movie, the Kingsman intelligence agency is promptly decimated by a drug cartel known as the Golden Circle because...I'm not exactly sure. Their wonky world domination plan and the actual destruction of Kingsman don't really make any sense outside of being bad plot devices to push the bloated script onto additional set pieces people still didn't ask for. Take the previously mentioned advice to watch a cool 30-second clip of Elton John kicking a guy in the face to “Saturday Night” and just be glad you didn't waste your money again this week. Its sadly too late for me.

My score: 2/10. Is it weird that I want to see more action sequences involving Elton John kicking dudes in the face to his own music? Probably weird...