Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)

The plot of Kingsman: Golden Circle: After an attack by Charlie, a man with a cybernetic arm, Eggsy escapes in the Kingsman taxi by activating its subaqua capabilities, but the arm hacks into the Kingsman system allowing the villain, Poppy, to blow up the organisation’s facilities leaving only Eggsy and Merlin (the tech guy) alive. They travel to Kentucky where they join a sister organisation Statesman, who as luck would have it, have brought Harry back to life (ideally you should have seen the first film). Meanwhile Poppy, from her headquarters in Cambodia, has used her world domination of the drug trade to poison the population with a drug which will eventually kill everybody. Sufferers include Tequila, one of Statesman’s guys, Princess Tilde, Eggsy’s girl friend and Fox, the US president’s right hand woman. The combined Statesman and Kingsman guys chase Poppy’s people across the world, and in order to save everybody they have to attack her headquarters in Cambodia.

Content of Kingsman:The Golden Circle: There is no actual sex, but when one young woman is getting close to Eggsy in her underwear, he inserts a tracking device into her. Yes, really! His girl friend, Princess Tilda is distressed by the requirements of his mission. A lot of bourbon is drunk. The Kingsman taxi  operates underwater in the Serpentine. There are cybernetics. Charlie uses his cybernetic arm, Poppy has two robot attack dogs and a robot in female form which does medical stuff. There are a lot of explosions. Numerous set pieces including one in a ski lift and some confrontations between Kingsmen with hand guns and soldiers with automatic weapons. A big finale in Poppy’s headquarters, which includes Elton John performing “Saturday Night”.

A View: I’m not sure that this outing makes much sense unless you have seen the first Kingsman film, where Eggsy is recruited by Harry. I suppose it is a natural progression, if the first film is a success, make another one bigger, bolder more violent and inevitably, more American. I liked the joke of making Halle Berry the bespectacled tech support but the Statesman spies, rather than being unlikely superheroes, are very likely superheroes. So there we go, if you saw the first Kingsman you’ll watch this, remembering its funnier jokes, if you didn’t see the first one you may wonder what it’s all about.

So in the pantheon of similar films by Vaughn and Goldman you will of course have to see Kingsman: The Secret Service, Stardust and the unmissable Kick-Ass.