I liked the first Kingsman a lot. I thought it was a fun and entertaining movie and which gave us a star in Taron Egerton. Matthew Vaughn returns to directs the sequel and imprints his style of film making into this one. Although, he does take it to another level in this one but not always in a better way.
To start, I did enjoy this movie but not as much as the first one. Eggsy (Taron) returns to fight a hidden drug lord Poppy (Julianne Moore) who has infected people with a mysterious drug all over the world. All the regular characters return, yes, including Harry Hart (Colin Firth) and a brief appearance from Dumbledore himself, Michael Gambon. There is also an introduction to Kingsman's American counterpart, The Statesman with characters including Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), Tequila (Channing Tatum), Champ (Jeff Bridges), Ginger (Halle Berry) and few others. The best part about the movie is its non-stop action and tie ins to the first film. Matthew Vaughn spends some time to take note of the seriousness of a particular grim situation. Taron Egerton is once again brilliant in this one and Channing Tatum for the very short time he was involved in this one.
What I didn't like about the film was that there were so many characters, not one got a chance to go through an arc. Even Harry Hart who was so amazing in the first one wasn't as charismatic in this one even if it was because of a unavoidable circumstance. Jeff Bridges and lot of the other statesman didn't have much to do and a certain story line involving Pedro Pascal's character did not have enough weight to it. The soundtrack too wasn't as impressive.
The problems I state are major ones but this was still a fun movie to watch. I imagine you can turn your brains completely off for this one and watch it and forget IMO.
Rating: 6/10