It also feels long because every bit or joke is dragged out long past its funniness or shock value. The plot here, just as reactionary in its way as that of the first one, centers around a drug cartel, the Golden Circle, run out of a jungle presided over by Julianne Moore’s Poppy. (I hope the producers of this movie paid Moore an inordinate amount of money, because all she gives them in return for her fee is a passable Megan Mullally impersonation, which is still less than they deserve.) Poppy’s very rich and powerful but also isolated and lonely, so she’s kidnapped Elton John and is forcing him to perform solely for her. Elton John is played by himself. This is funny at first, then sour, then gets beaten worse than a dead horse as Sir Elton is made a plot point and a climactic action sequence is played out over one of his more raucous numbers. “Enough,” one thinks, but “enough” does not exist in the philosophy of this movie.
Well, I suppose it does in one respect. In “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” villain Valentine, played by Samuel L. Jackson, inveigled various world leaders into going along with his twisted save-the-earth doomsday scheme; he then implanted a device in their necks that, unbeknownst to them, could blow up their heads if triggered. One of the world leaders was meant to be taken for then-President Barack Obama. And at the movie’s ending, all the head-exploding devices were made to go off, and the audience was invited to guffaw at the spectacle of Barack Obama’s head blowing up. This movie’s plot hinges on tainted drugs that will kill, potentially, all the world’s substance abusers. The scheme, initiated by Moore’s character, is reported by Fox News, none of whose correspondents are shown to have the sign of the taint. Because no one who works for Fox News does drugs, as we know. This movie also features a United States President, but not a real one, as the last film did; this movie’s president is white, and played by Bruce Greenwood. It’s probably just a coincidence that this movie is produced by Fox. It probably means nothing that this movie, made by people who invited you to laugh at the violent death of the United States’ first black president, won’t touch Donald Trump with a ten-foot pole. They can’t be racist, right? They cast Halle Berry in this movie and Samuel L. Jackson in the last. They approve of black actors at least.
Speaking of actors, this is a movie that makes you wonder about them as a class. Can Colin Firth, Channing Tatum, Mark Strong, Jeff Bridges, Poppy Delevingne, Julianne Moore, Michael Gambon, and so many others in the cast be themselves as soul-dead and life-hating as this movie? If not (and it’s probably, or at least hopefully, not) who do we blame? Their agents? The whole bloody system that’s out of order?
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46koKefo6Kur3nToZxmn5%2Bhsaa6jJygq5ucmnpzfJBw