Savvy but tedious

Johnson Thomas

In “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” Valentine(Samuel L Jackson) supposedly put an end to Super Spy Harry Hart( Colin Firth). So in this sophomore outing for the franchise, it’s his understudy Eggsy Unwin(Taron Egerton) who has the responsibility of saving the world from a drug taint, engineered by Poppy(Julianne Moore). that would in all probability put an end to all substance abusers existing on this planet- much like what Valentine(Samuel L. Jackson) did in the first outing.

One of the world leaders who got blown-up then, for rudimentary kicks, was indeed a black President and in this one it’s a White President (Bruce Greenwood) who is at risk- blackmailed by Poppy, the arch villain who heads the world’s biggest drug cartel The Golden Circle..

It’s obvious from the characterisations that the gender reversal of the arch villain and the reversed racial preference for President was meant to lend contemporariness to the fictionalised events on display. Also director Vaughn and his long-time writing partner Jane Goldman have handled the script this time round. So that’s also a telling point in itself. 

It’s action for action’s sake and the opening set-piece involving a car chase in London at night sets the bar pretty high. It’s wild and undefined as we never really get to understand who is chasing whom and why, so the attachment is also lost in the bargain. Several clinical, farcical dismemberments are effected in this issue and the violence thereof feels pusillanimous and craven.  

The Golden Circle finds the high-end British Tailoring establishment, HQ of the Kingsman, decimated and so they are forced to join forces with a whiskey manufacturing U.S. spy network called “Statesman” (with Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges and Halle Berry top-lining there).

The British –US pairing does have some interesting manoeuvres in store but it’s not all excitement and classiness altogether.  

Clocking in at two hours and 20 minutes with super-speed action and full throttle pace, there’s not much room for attachment here. With sharp-dressed characters slow-motioning into the widescreen frames in an all-too-obvious effort to show off accessories meant to be monetised through e-commerce portals, you get the general drift of the convoluted reasoning behind this bloated, overtly self-aware effort.

The pyrotechnics generated here are definitely not a guilty pleasure, it’s too disgustingly obvious and crassly commercial to be overlooked as such.