By Adam Miklas
Staff Writer

“Kingsman: The Secret Service” was a surprise hit, mixing modern action techniques with old bond style spies and gadgets.

So, does the sequel manage to keep the same great blend or even enhance them?

“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” ups the stakes with more characters, dying, action etc, everything a sequel should do.

If there was any doubt that it would just be the same movie again, assuage your fears.

SPOILER ALERT: The movie starts off with Eggsy (Taron Egerton) fighting off Charlie (Edward Holcroft), a previous failed applicant of Kingsman through the streets. He is successful, but Charlie still manages to get the information on the Kingsman that he needs and gives it to his new boss Poppy (Julianne Moore).

While the comedy isn’t as strong in this film as the last one, it still gets some great laughs, with particular mention going to a certain Sir Elton John having some of the best moments.

The actions scene are just as cool as before. The choreography is well done, the set pieces are great, and the style factor is even higher than before, excluding the iconic church scene from the first movie.

Now since the Statesman are involved, we get to see some of the American spy tech, such as an electric retractable lasso, nanomachines and handling dual revolver in the most impractical yet satisfying way possible.

However, this movie is not as solid as the previous film.

The villain isn’t as strong or as charismatic as Valentine from the first one, some plot points don’t make much sense and many unnecessary choices are done with the existence of some characters, though that would be going into spoiler territory.

For an over-the-top action film, there’s surprisingly not much blood or anything warranting and “Oh!” moment.

Some of the drastic camera moments make some of the action scenes hard to tell what’s going on and anyone vulnerable to motion sickness might want to look away.

While these camera moments where occasionally in the first film, they are in every action scene here so any cool factor that these might present is worn out fast.

The biggest problem with this film is it is less like a modern, raunchy bond film and more like a comic book film.

That’s not a bad thing to be as the first film had its comic booky moments too, but the appeal from the first movie was seeing all of the cool and interesting British gadgets integrated into the action scenes and for a film to not take itself as seriously as modern spy movies are doing and that’s not as present in this film.

While the film is not as strong or as charming as the first one, it is still filled with great moments and is an entertaining popcorn flick.

Email Adam at:
amiklas@live.esu.edu