‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ got mixed reviews on its first screen, on September 20th. Critics slammed the movie at its preview, calling it “less critical success.”
Despite the harsh reviews, the A-list sequel is expected to be a box office smash, even better than the first movie.
A Star-studded film and its comeback
‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle‘ is a 2017 action spy comedy film co-produced and directed by and written by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman. Who also directed the first film of the franchise created by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar.
The film includes iconic stars such as Michael Caine, Samuel L Jackson, Mark Hamill and host of celebrity cameos, Julianne Moore is the villain, joined by — deep breath — Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Michael Gambon, Pedro Pascal and, believe it or not, Elton John.
The film features Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong and Sophie Cookson reprising their roles from the first film.
The plot follows the Kingsmen needing to team up with their American counterparts, the Statesman after the world is held hostage by a new threat and the Kingsmen’s headquarters are destroyed. Despite the big names joining the cast, Colin was still not impressed.
He said the first film “may have felt like a straggly, goading holdover from the twilight of the lads’ mags, but at least it committed to its nasty streak and took venomous pleasure in prodding your buttons till they beeped”.
But on the sequel, he added: “This crazily overlong and tiresome follow-up, however, doesn’t seem to have the first idea what to do with itself – not least when it comes to its much-vaunted all-star cast, the majority of whom are barely even in it.”
‘The Golden Circle’ hits theaters on 22 September in the United States
The spy sequel doesn’t quite earn its license to kill
‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ arrives with more action and running time than its predecessor, but with decidedly less critical success.
EW’s Chris Nashawaty wrote in his C-minus review, “If the first Kingsman, at its best, felt like a dry martini of a joke, then this one is more Jack and Mountain Dew — unsubtle, unrefreshing, and unnecessary.”
“It is all aggressively stylized, abusively fast-paced and ear-bleedingly loud, relying so heavily on CGI that nothing — not one thing — seems to correspond to the real world,” Variety’s Peter Debruge said of the movie.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy wonders when enough is enough and how come this movie came to be.
“The spirited continuation of Matthew Vaughn’s disarmingly clever 2015 introduction of the bespoke-suited British secret. Begun to overkill with an unnecessarily long 141 minutes,” McCarthy said.
Kingsman’s, however, will do well in its box office opening
‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle’ opens in US theaters on September 22nd, and at current estimate, is poised for a $40 – 45 million opening weekend box office. Which would put it ahead of the $36.5 million opening weekend for the first film in 2015.
As THR reports, that’s not only a good sign for the Kingsman franchise but for Hollywood, as well, after the long drag of truly abysmal August at the box office.
‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ went on to earn over $400 million at the worldwide box office, and with the franchise’s inherent appeal in overseas markets, there’s no doubt that the worldwide box office haul will be pretty good for ‘The Golden Circle’, as well.
The sequel will also have a chance at a much bigger domestic office, thanks to the relocated setting (America) and a lineup of A-list stars playing “The Statesmen,” a US version of The Kingsman.
September is also shaping up to be unusually exciting for movie releases this year: in addition to ‘Kingsman’, we’ll get the much-anticipated release of Stephen King’s ‘IT’, as well as the IMAX theater premiere of ‘Marvel’s Inhumans’.
Source: The Telegraph