Kingsman sequel gets mixed reaction from critics

Logo for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, sequel to 2015’s Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Golden Circle isn’t off to a fast start with critics.

The movie, a sequel to 2015’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, currently had a 57 percent “fresh” rating Tuesday evening on the Rotten Tomatoes website, which collects and scores reviews.

Here are some non-spoiler excerpts from reviews published after the movie’s premiere this week. The movie comes out this weekend in the U.S.

PHIL NOBILE JR., BIRTH.MOVIES.DEATH: “(Director Matthew) Vaughn’s new film suffers from a kind of Observer Effect: it knows what we loved about the original, is kind of self-satisfied by what mortified us about the original, and endeavors to give us more of both.  Everything is scaled up, and the end result is too much of a good thing, too much of some bad things, and just too much of everything.”

SCOTT MENDELSON, FORBES.COM: “Kingsman: The Golden Circle is surface-level entertaining and offers enough colorful diversions and solid action to merit a viewing. But it focuses too much of its energies on undoing its own narrative while letting everything else of value fall by the side or get outright written out….It feels less like The Spy Who Loved Me and more like James Bond Jr.”

MIKE REYES, CINEMABLEND: “Thankfully, I can say that Kingsman: The Golden Circle keeps the action cranked, the laughs fresh, and even injects more confidence into its proceedings, making for what Eggsy (Taron Egerton) himself might call a fucking proper blast.”

TODD MCCARTHY, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: “There is, then, an endearingly goofy method to the writers’ fervid madness that serves the material well and, as ever, Vaughn puts it all up on the screen with boisterous but carefully calibrated enthusiasm….Vaughn actually seems to prefer character, dialogue and humor to chases and explosion, and he makes mostly very good use of his almost invariably well-chosen actors by identifying their appeal and drawing out their humor.”

ROBERT ABELE, THE WRAP: “It took the Bond series 15 years and 10 movies to get to the ridiculed “Moonraker.” The laddish spy franchise “Kingsman: The Secret Service” series, based on Mark Millar’s comic book, has done it in one leap with the bloated, inexplicably un-entertaining follow-up “Kingsman: The Golden Circle.”

(Note from The Spy Commander: Actually 17 years and 11 films. Moonraker, 11th in the series produced by Eon Productions, came out in 1979, Dr. No in 1962.)

Happy 84th birthday, David McCallum

Sept. 19 is the 84th birthday of David McCallum, who seems busy as ever.

In 2016, he had Once a Crooked Man: A Novel published. He continues to appear in the NCIS series. And over the weekend, he celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary.

Below, we present an advertisement from McCallum’s days as Illya Kuryakin during The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Here the actor, evoking his U.N.C.L.E. image as the agent from the Soviet Bloc (“enigmatic agent,” as it says in the ad), is pitching U.S. Savings Bonds.  Happy birthday, Mr. McCallum.

 

1960s ad with David McCallum, playing off his image as Illya Kuryakin, pitching U.S. Savings Bonds