Review: 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' aims for too many things

‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ suffers from a very common trend on film sequels, that everything must conform in expanding a universe established by its predecessor for the sake of simply, conformity.

The film is the follow-up to 2015’s ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service,’ a straight up parody of old, campy James Bond films. While that film was able to incorporate the humor with references of the latter films effectively, there’s no denying the Matthew Vaughn flick managed to merit an emotional pull from its characters. An inclusion of hyper-violent action sequences (i.e., a brutal fight scene inside a church filled with Christians) became a memorable bit here, so it’s impossible to not expect something like this the second time for ‘The Golden Circle.’

And it already shows on its opening, a car brawl between our main protagonist Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) and a man from his past, now equipped with a mechanical arm. But that scene felt different from what we are already accustomed to by its predecessor. It’s cartoony, completely unrealistic, and a whole lot of fun. The fact that we start with this scene is a decent set-up to the exaggerated scenes that ensues after.

It’s clear Vaughn is aiming for something here, in fact he is aiming a lot. This has become a huge problem within a lot of film sequels recently. Aside from its motivation to continue an existing storyline, it tries to move forward to something way bigger, so much so, it forgot to balance things together.

In ‘The Golden Circle,’ the British spy organization unexpectedly resorts to their American counterpart Statesman. It’s fun seeing these two groups interact together, but the whole thing falters down when you started to realize there’s nothing really intriguing to hold onto its members. Even the sight of Pedro Pascal’s charismatic Whiskey and the resurrected Harry Hart (Colin Firth) cannot save it.

The film has a lot to fill, since it purposely opened new things in the first place. But unfortunately, everything felt incomplete. While there’s still a few things to enjoy here, specifically the opening and an impressive performance from Taron Egerton, ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ just looks embarrassing on trying to have too much fun. Oh, and the whole thing is misogynistic! But don’t get me there.

'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' is now showing in cinemas nationwide from 20th Century Fox Philippines. Rated R-13 by the MTRCB.