Rated Greg’s Top 5 Two’s
- The Godfather Part II
- Terminator 2: Judgement Day
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- The Dark Knight
- Bad Boys II
I was very bullish on Kingsman 2 coming into Q3, however I should have seen a letdown coming. The trends were there. Back in 2010, Matthew Vaughn took on a seemingly corny premise of a high school dweeb becoming a superhero in Kick-Ass, only to turn in a stylishly violent, extremely entertaining hard R action movie (there’s a reason it made the Top 5 Superhero films this century). A few years later came Kick-Ass 2, which fell victim to the mistakes of most action sequels, such as inserting too many heroes/villains and diluting what made the original special in the first place with lazy storytelling.
After the Kick Ass 2 flop, Vaughn took on a seemingly corny premise of a young ruffian becoming a British secret agent in Kingsman, only to turn in yet another stylishly violent, extremely entertaining hard R action movie. Samuel Jackson’s Russell Simmons inspired antagonist was absolutely genius and the movie somehow managed to make Colin Firth as deadly as Rambo (while have it not come off as a joke). But Kingsman 2 takes everything charming about the original and cuts it down to a vastly inferior product.
Quite frankly, Kingsman: The Golden Circle makes no goddamn sense. It’s not like these movies are meant to be realistic, but even this film takes a little too many liberties. For one, if you kill off a main character in the middle of the first movie AND you treat that event as serious as say…Bubba dying in Forrest Gump’s arms, you probably shouldn’t bring that character back to life in the sequel’s trailer like it’s NBD. Also, Channing Tatum’s presence in this movie is nothing but fake news. He was a major part of the marketing however is maybe on screen for 6 minutes? Apparently a scheduling snafu caused them to have to scale back this role, so his minimal presence is really only included in the final cut in order to hint at an expanded role in the already announced Kingsman 3. I’m a fan of Tatum but his character Whiskey, at least in this chapter, brings zero value added to Kingsman.
On top of those easily avoidable errors, the rest of the film is just pretty forgettable…. with two exceptions. One is an unbelievable extended cameo by one of the most famous humans on Earth that is too good to spoil. The other is Julianne Moore as the main villain Poppy, a diabolical South American drug lord with an affinity for meat grinders. Everything she’s doing in this movie is so damn campy and weird. I just found it to be really interesting and captivating every time she pops up, single handedly bringing Kingsman 2 up a letter grade on the RG scale. Grade: C
Rated Greg 