Get Ready To Don Your Best Bespoke Suit Or Frock, Ladies And Gentlemen, Because The World’s Most Well-Dressed Spies (Sorry, Bond) Are Back In Their Second Outing, Kingsman: The Golden Circle…
Kingsman: The Secret Service was something of a surprise hit when it landed back in 2015. On the back of a $91 million budget, it earned over $400 million worldwide and a heap of love from critics and moviegoers alike. Sporting a fantastic cast mixing big names like Colin Firth, Michael Caine, and Samuel L. Jackson with rising stars like Taron Egerton and Sofia Boutella, Kingsman was gleefully anarchic, audacious, ultra-violent and occasionally just plain batshit crazy. Spoilers incoming for those who didn’t see it - it’s hard to imagine any other film having the guts to blow the heads off the world’s heads of state and stylise it like a firework display.
Just like the earlier superhero movie Kick-Ass, it saw director Matthew Vaughn once again loosely adapt one of Mark Millar’s series from Icon Comics (a creator-owned imprint of Marvel) to the screen. Likewise, as Kick-Ass both paid homage to and parodied comic book movie conventions, Kingsman was a love letter to old-fashioned James Bond movies but also gave the clichés of the genre an irreverent twist. In an unlikely turn of events, it turned out to be a lot more fun and memorable than that same year’s official Bond movie the muddled misfire that was SPECTRE.
Unsurprisingly, then, the gentlemen spies are back for a second round of fixing their ties while kicking henchmen’s heads in and saving the world from megalomaniacs. As you would expect after the first film, the sequel - which has an upped budget of $140 million this time - won’t just sit on its laurels, but looks to be aiming to be just as funny, bold, and thrilling as its predecessor.
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