I CAUGHT one of the last screenings of Kingsman: The Golden Circle and the moviehouse was still full. The secret of its success: unbridled, relentless fun. When its prequel, Kingsman: The Secret Service, ended, one felt there was something hanging, something excitingly unresolved. The character of Colin Firth (Harry Hart) died in that film, and it was just silly and incredible to kill off that charming character. Harry Hart was simply too big to vanish. The best, albeit predictable, solution is to have a sequel. But what story can succeed if the hero—or one of the heroes—is obviously no longer present?
Well, the best solution for the Kingsman story is here in its sequel. The same lead actors are around, and that’s quite a bonus. In sequels, the shock of pleasant recognition is a boon. For all the accepted artifice of a screenplay, it is nice to see the same faces, the same actors to grace our memory of the previous plot. Taron Egerton, still youthful here, reprises his role as Eggsy. With the death of Harry Hart, who goes by the name of Galahad, Eggsy assumes the name of his deceased mentor who, bless our fate, is alive.
Some critics and fans of this adventure, which is based on a comic book written by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar, have been heard to complain about the additional characters, and the convoluted lengthy plot. Yet, it is always good when the good battles evil, and there are terrific good agents to root for. This sequel has more of them, and that’s swell.
The sequel opens with our cad of an agent—cute and suavely naïve Eggsy—consorting with the royalty. Eggsy is with Tilde, the Princess of Sweden, somewhere, away from it all. But he can’t escape the destiny of his being a super agent. He encounters a former Kingsman trainee who has gone bad. He survives a lethal and grand car chase full of mayhem and action. The cybernetic hand of the bad agent, however, gets cut and finds itself through the headquarters of the Kingsman. There, it hacks the intelligence hub of the secret service. A tragedy happens next and we see the agents of Kingsman decimated. The tragedy brings Eggsy and Merlin to the US, where they meet up with another super secret agent’s group disguised in Kentucky as a whiskey brewery. After false starts, the Kingsman and the Statesman team up to fight Poppy, the head of a drug cartel.
In the meantime, Eggsy discovers Harry Hart alive but suffering from severe amnesia. Of course, he recovers just in time to wage the final battle—at least in this edition—between good and evil.
Colin Firth is shamelessly elegant even in forgetfulness. One misses, however, the opening scene in the first Kingsman story, where his umbrella-carrying British gent wipes from the face of this earth his ethical and sartorial antithesis, the thugs in that bar. Since Eggsy has become Galahad, the name of Harry Hart who is supposed to be dead already, we don’t see anymore the original Galahad’s mentoring of the younger Galahad.
Julianne Moore as Poppy of poppy land (the Poppy is also a flower, remember) isn’t evil enough. There may be a reason for this but, for now, we don’t see that. We miss the dark shadows of the first Kingsman installment. But where a door closes, a golden gate of characters open. Welcome to the Stateside agents who may not possess the aplomb and gentility of a Harry Hart, but are gutsy and macho enough. Their name promises raw energy. Channing Tatum is a cowboy and goes by the name Agent Tequila. Take that name or leave it. When Tequila gets infected by the toxin Poppy had placed in the drugs, he is replaced with agent Whisky. Eggsy has to play up his character to survive as a personality beside a man named Whisky. On top of all this cast is Elton John playing himself, decked in a costume that is a cross between a Robocop and a Mardi Gras Queen.
In the end—spoilers alert!—the name Whisky is offered by the head of the Statesman, Jeff Bridges as Champagne, to either Harry or Eggsy. Indeed, there can only be one Galahad. Harry and Eggsy both refuse the name. Hally Berry drops her name “Ginger Ale” and becomes the next Whisky. From hereon, we know there could—there should—be a sequel, and Hally Berry should be a major player in it. It goes without saying that we want Colin Firth and Taron Egerton to stay on. We don’t certainly mind having two Galahads.
As I said, take the film Kingsman: The Golden Circle as fun. For those, however, who look for social commentary, we can always look to a character in the movie, the location of the drug cartel—Cambodia. It has to be Asia. I wonder if the producers and writers ever considered the Philippines as poppy land? It would make this government giddy with joy.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle is produced and directed by Matthew Vaughn, the same person behind the original Kingsman.
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IN another development, Facine, the Filipino filmfest based in San Franciso and ran by Mauro Tumbocon, announces the selection of Nora Aunor for the film Hinulid. In the many films done by the great actor, it was her role as Sita that received nomination in this year’s edition of Gawad Urian. From the same film directed by Kristian Sendon Cordero, a Bikolano filmmaker, Ryan Cuatrona and Celine Beleno’s production design was also awarded as the best in that field.
Cordero was able to attend the film festival that’s gaining such a cult following among young filmmakers. The director is in the United States winding up his stint as writer/poet/filmmaker in the famed Iowa Writers’ Residency Program.