Kingsman: The Golden Circle

I still like it, but it finally gets going somewhere in the middle (not even thanks to the action scene), then it trots elegantly to the inevitable conclusion. It's still true that Vaughn can serve action on a silver platter without seams, but it's a pity that his provocations no longer have such balls. Only Elton John, who thoroughly did a lot of coke and is fighting for his life, but it’s still not as good as Kingsman: The Secret Service... (12/18/2017)

Kingsman is one of my favourite movies ever, but the sequel is a disappointment. Usually with sequels they add more of everything that was good in the first one, here it's the opposite. There's less action, blood, humour, and the pacing has slowed down, which were the four basic elements that the first one had. The film starts with an excellent car chase and then we wait an hour and a half for an action scene, which is a hell of a long time. I liked the action scene in the bar, which recalls the first episode, and then the half hour finale, which has a decent pace and fixes the impression of the previous hour, but lacks something that would be equal, for example, the church scene from the first one. I loved Pedro Pascal, he steals all the action for himself with Las, Halle Berry is also nice and the character of the president is awesome. I didn’t like the uninteresting Julianne Moore, who was absolutely not suitable for villain, she is not Samuel L. Jackson, but then I don't trust female villains too much, and her robot dogs seemed a bit too much for me. Overall, still over the top and stylish fun with very creative and modern direction by Matthew Vaughn, but it didn't have enough ideas to match the first one in my opinion anymore. I'd love to see a spin off with the Statesmen. 75%. (09/21/2017)

Vaughn pulls one action finesse after another out of his sleeve (it's nice to see neat contact fights in a big blockbuster, and I don't care that it's actually being constricted by a nifty VFX camera and a clever editor), but if he and Goldman went over the line too much last time, here they are incomprehensibly tame. The rushing of relationships at the expense of building a more meaningful story is terribly futile on all fronts. There’s a bunch of kitsch and sentimentality but without a drop of audacity, subversion, or any will to go more toward boldness. This makes the surprising self-sacrifice seem almost out of place and leaves the empathy barometer at rest. It's a hundred and forty minutes long, with enough plots for three films, but not a single one hits the mark. It’s really all quite boring. I want to conclude a trilogy that will rage for two hours on all fronts, then world peace and contentment will reign. (12/05/2017)

Kingsman goes America! Given the stupidity of its premise and particular details reminiscent of Wild Wild West, this movie is surprisingly high-quality fun. Epic locations, stellar casting, a fast pace, a shitload of filmmaking ideas and especially witty pop-culture references, proving Matthew Vaughn’s intelligence and ability to reflect the current state of society and audience tastes. (10/02/2017)

I already had problems with the first Kingsman (I thought it was teenage nonsense that doesn’t know the limits of good taste), so it’s no surprise that the sequel didn’t pull me into the cinemas. Actually, I should rate it lower than I am, because it’s clearly weaker than the previous one. But I really don’t give a toss. The Golden Circle is such an uninteresting film that it didn’t even manage to piss me off. Sad. For a moment, I also wanted to complain about how weirdly and poorly the antagonist is drawn, but then I realised that I don’t remember even who was the villain in the first one (and I still can’t recall it!). But I will remember Julianne Moore, so I’ll leave my complaints for another time. :D (09/21/2017)