In 2014, when the once-gleefully ludicrous James Bond franchise was disappearing down the rabbit hole of Nolan-esque gritty realism, Matthew Vaughn came along to inject some fun back into spy movies with a hard-R adaptation of Mark Millar’s Kingsman comics. With its stylish action scenes and pitch-black comedic sensibility, Kingsman: The Secret Service arrived as a refreshing change of pace for audiences inundated with safe PG-13 blockbusters and thrillers that take themselves too seriously.
When the movie grossed over $400 million at the worldwide box office, it was a no-brainer for 20th Century Fox to get Vaughn to work on a sequel (in addition to a bunch of further sequels and spin-offs). Unfortunately, while it has its moments and the star-studded cast brings their A-game, 2017’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle fell far short of its mind-blowing predecessor.
The Golden Circle is far from a bad movie. It certainly strives to be as entertaining as the original, the story takes plenty of risks, Taron Egerton still brings his all to the role of Eggsy, and Elton John’s supporting role as a miserable version of himself trapped in a supervillain’s lair is a highlight. But a few egregious missteps, like fridging fan-favorite Roxy early in the movie and bungling Harry’s inevitable resurrection, make it a much weaker film than The Secret Service. The opening taxi chase gets things off to an explosive start, but after that, the pacing becomes painfully slow and there are long stretches of the runtime completely devoid of action.
One of the things that grabbed audiences in the first Kingsman movie was its explosive action sequences, directed with gusto by Vaughn and brought to life by a crack team of stunt performers and camera operators. Like most sequels, The Golden Circle set out to go bigger than its predecessor, but this larger-scale action mostly fell flat. Apart from the ski lift sequence, which is admittedly pretty exciting, The Golden Circle’s action is bloated and dull. Taking cover in a cabin as it’s riddled with gunfire isn’t as engaging as following a gun-toting superspy through a crowded church popping off headshot after headshot.
Easily the greatest sequence in the first Kingsman movie is the church shootout. It’s not the official climax, but it is the peak of the movie’s thrills and culminates in the unexpected tragedy that will motivate Eggsy to take down the villain, Samuel L. Jackson’s lisping megalomaniac Richmond Valentine, once and for all. When Kingsman agent Harry Hart follows a lead to a far-right church in the Deep South, Valentine uses his mind-controlling SIM cards to turn everybody in the building – including Harry himself – into bloodthirsty killers.
The plan is for Harry to be killed in the melee, but his spy training kicks in as he beats, stabs, and shoots a congregation of churchgoers to death. Cinematographer George Richmond employs a handheld camera for most of the sequence, frantically following Harry through the carnage. Richmond manages to capture everything he needs to while conveying a tangible spontaneity, like the camera is struggling to keep up with Harry’s murderous rampage. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” provides the perfect musical accompaniment. The country-rock sounds evoke the southern setting and the song’s increasing tempo means that, as the action gets more intense, the song gets faster.
The original Kingsman’s church shootout is one of the greatest action sequences ever put on film. It’s as fast-paced as the hallway fight in Oldboy, as intense as the nightclub shootout in John Wick, and as spectacular as the lobby standoff in The Matrix. There was a chance that the sequel could’ve topped it with something even more unpredictable and wildly entertaining, but nothing in The Golden Circle came close.
There are a lot of great moments in The Golden Circle, like people getting fed into a meat grinder and Merlin sacrificing himself to stand on an activated landmine as he sings John Denver’s “Country Roads,” but there are no full sequences that feel as tight and fluid and meticulously crafted as the first film’s church scene. Even the bar brawl, which was practically a shot-for-shot remake of arguably The Secret Service’s second-best action scene, managed to erase everything that made the original sequence so much fun.
The Kingsman franchise is just getting started. There’s a third movie in the mainline series on the way, as well as a prequel about the founding of Kingsman called The King’s Man that’s been delayed by the pandemic, so Vaughn and co. still have plenty of opportunities to surpass their finest achievement. The filmmakers should look at their work on the church shootout in the first movie as the benchmark they’ve set for themselves to top. Every subsequent Kingsman action sequence should be scrutinized against that one in the hopes of recapturing its spirit.