"Manners. Maketh. Man. Let Me Translate That For You.."
Arguably being the director responsible for the rise of Daniel Craig as the world's greatest British secret agent due to his successes with Layer Cake back in 2004, Matthew Vaughn's successful trip with the Kingsman series returns this week with The Golden Circle, a star-studded action sequel which follows on from the fanfare of the first by being a film fundamentally addicted with the Bond series and all its' many pleasures, but too a sequel which is primarily focused on the excesses evident within arguably the worst Bond films in the canon, releases which chose CGI surfing and invisible cars over any form of substance, and whilst The Golden Circle does boast a returning Colin Firth, Julianne Moore and Jeff Bridges, there is too few elements to enjoy within the space of a two hour-plus movie which follows the common trends of the sequel by being not at all in the realm of critical greatness as its' predecessor. Whilst the first film did have a variety of flaws, including a crass, laddish undertone which attempted to derail the film completely, The Golden Circle goes one further in mediocrity and suffers fundamentally from elements which so easily could have been avoided, particularly when admiring the previous works of director, Matthew Vaughn.
Of the many elements which do not work, the chauvinistic, sexist portrayal of female characters which began slightly in The Secret Service continues to an extent within The Golden Circle, a particular flaw which makes Roger Moore's treatment of women in his respective Bond films seem gentlemanly beyond belief. Whether it be a completely twisted and jarring scene of sexual spy implementation rape in a Glastonbury tent or the total lack of substance for characters portrayed by the likes of Halle Berry and Sophie Cookson, The Golden Circle is ran by a script which simply doesn't care for its' characters whatsoever, and with the return of Colin Firth after his death in the previous movie, the film suffers too from a complete lack of peril or fear due to the notion that a bullet wound to the head can simply be fixed by magical glue. With fight scenes a-plenty which are just CGI-fueled mania, Julianne Moore arguably giving her worst performance ever and Elton John popping up to add humour to proceedings, The Golden Circle is an absolute mess of a movie, but one which is somewhat redeemed by flashy editing, a cucumber cool soundtrack and a solid leading performance from Taron Egerton but ultimately a sequel which still manages to be the lesser body of work when compared to its' predecessor. Shame.
No comments:
Post a Comment