Kingsman: The Golden Circle - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
Matthew Vaughn has created himself a niche following of people as he makes some of the most unique and highly divisive takes on modern pop culture that I’ve seen. Sure, the man does do some “normal stuff” such as X-Men: First Class or Stardust, but he really made a name for himself by adapting a set of graphic novels from Mark Millar as well as Kingsman: The Secret Service. Both of which has Vaughn slyly lampooning the super hero and James Bond franchises with those films in an “over the top” and excessive way. Well, they always say that the job of a sequel is to outdo its predecessor, but how do you outdo a film like Kingsman: The Secret Service whose entire goal was to be over the top and excessive to begin with? Well, you get even MORE excessive, and more over the top than that one was of course! The Golden Circle certainly goes crazy with all the fun and action sequences, but it sadly feels like a step back from the really fun 2014 predecessor in some ways.

Eggsy (Taron Egerton) has gone on from becoming a junior agent in the Kingsman Secret Intelligence agency, to being a senior agent taking the place of Agent Galahad (Harry Hart, played by Colin Firth in the first film) after his untimely demise during the previous film. Not only that, but he and that Swedish princess Tilde (Hanna Alstrom) are living happily in England while everyone else lives their lives. But that is not how an action movie is meant to be, and soon Eggsy’s happy existence is turned upside down when a drug kingpin named Poppy (Julianne Moore) blows up the ENTIRETY of the Kingsman’s secret service agents to kingdom come. The only survivors being Eggsy, and the technical guru of the agency, Merlin (Mark Strong). With the whole agency destroyed, Merlin and Eggsy dig into the “doomsday” safe that was left for them and find clues leading them to America.

It seems that England is not the ONLY group of super spies, as the due come to face to face with their American counterpart, known as “The Statesman”. These wild and wooly boys are the epitome of modern cowpokes, just with lots higher technology and a love for good Tennessee whiskey. After being introduced to the top brass (including Channing Tatum and Jeff Bridges doing his “cowboy voice”), the british agents have one more thing to contend with. Harry Hart (Galahad Sr.) is alive and well in the Statesman’s lair, but the poor guy has lost his memory. Now it’s up to the Statesman AND the surviving Kingsman agents to unlock Galahad’s brain AND take down Poppy before she sends 100s of millions of people to their death after lacing her own drug supply with a reversible poison in an effort to become “legit”

The Golden Circle is a bit of a strange bird. It has the look and familiar feel of The Secret Service, but goes off in a fractured direction that leaves it less cohesive and more “flashy” than the original. Some of the changes are really good (the action scenes are superb), but the excesses that it takes tends to take away from the satirical flavor that the first film balanced so well. I enjoyed the inclusion of the American branch of the super spy business, and Channing Tatum was HILARIOUS as agent Tequila, but even though he is plastered all over the front of the cover and given top billing, the actor is only in the 2 hour and 20 minute film for a grand total of 8-10 minutes before he’s sidelined. Which leaves us with the replacement in the form of agent Whiskey, played by Pedro Pascal, and the movie is sadly remiss for that point.

Vaughn still has a bit of satire and commentary in The Golden Circle, as he attacks the famous “war on drugs” with a vengeance and even plays a bit with our ideas of the past as well. But he is so intent on outdoing the 2014 freshman effort that he goes just a bit TOOO over the top. In The Secret Service the violence is a wink and a nod to our love of action in Spy movies, as is many other tongue in cheek moments along the way. The Golden Circle gives up the poignancy and satire of the first film and instead uses over the top violence and action (such as Elton John going full kung fu master in a feather boa’d outfit) as more of a sight gag, limiting the punch of said action to anything more than appealing to the audiences desire to see more blood, guts and butt kicking.




Rating:

Rated R for sequences of strong violence, drug content, language throughout and some sexual material




Video:

Much like its predecessor, The Golden Circle comes to Blu-ray with a stunning looking 2.39:1 AVC encoded transfer that was struck from a 2K digital intermediate (which was taken from an Arri Alexa camera shoot). The results are just what you would expect from a shiny new blockbusters, as the colors and exciting new arenas pop with wonderful color saturation and exquisite detailing. The film is given a bright and overly shiny look, with strong primaries benefiting the most, while the softer colors tend to fade into the background a bit more (look at Poppy’s 50s inspired pink diners etc). Detailing is almost 100% perfect, with Eggsy’s suit looking magnificent and allowing for the viewer to see intimate details such as his light 5 O’clock shadow, and for the little bits of dirt and debris to show up against the neat and tidy clothing of the brits. There’s some shots that look a bit soft, but those mainly pertain to some of the more CGI heavy shots where Vaughn is blending real world with computer generated ones, but overall this is an EXCELLENT looking film.





Audio:

Fox does its normal thing by putting a 7.1 DTS-HD MA track on the Blu-ray, while giving the 4K UHD disc a boost up to Dolby Atmos. I must say though, this 7.1 track is nothing short of stunning and about as close to perfect as you can humanely get. The dialog and softer elements of the movie are transposed perfectly over the wilder action, and the balanced is done so well that you don’t feel the need to raise or lower the volume in an effort to compensate for a VERY wide dynamic range. When Galahad and Eggsy are kicking tail in the jungle of Poppy’s little “abode”, things are blowing up and roaring from all angles, and the snow swept peaks of the antidote’s lab escape show off some amazing aerial directional twists as the falling lift whirls through the air. LFE is clean and deep, adding a ton of force when necessary but also being restrained and softer when the situation doesn’t call for thundering bass. Simply put, it’s really hard to get significantly better than this.





Extras:

• KINGSMAN: INSIDE THE GOLDEN CIRCLE (Multi-chaptered Documentary)
- Distilling The Story: Kingsman Returns
- Trafficker, Tailor, Southerner, Spy
- Poppy's Special Guest: Elton John
- Nefarious Lairs & High-Falutin' Headquarters
- Suited And Booted
- Weapons of Choice
- Brothers In Arms
- Doomsday Protocol: Visual Effects
- End Game
• Black Cab Chaos: Anatomy of a Killer Chase
• Kingsman Archives
- Concept Art: Sets, Costumes (36 Images)
- Stills: Behind The Scenes, Sets, Props, The Cast (52 Images)

Final Score: ​

With that being said, the movie is very stylish and the action IS a lot of fun. It’s just that the depth of the first movie (as much depth as there was) is replaced with more traditional guns, knives, explosions and beautiful women. I guess you could say, the sequel gave up what made its predecessor “special” and gave it the good old “style over substance” upgrade in an effort to outdo itself. The movie is vacuous, dumb, but gleefully over the top and full of some fun fight sequences with a killer audio and video track no matter if you choose the 4K UHD or the Blu-ray to watch (although I would give the 4K the upper hand by a decent margin due to the inclusion of Atmos and the uptick in quality in the video encode). Recommended as a fun watch for those who like over the top action movies.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tarog Egerton, Channing Tatum, Mark Strong, Colin Firth
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 7.1, Spanish, French DD 5.1
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Rated: R
Runtime: 141 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: December 12th, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Decent Watch

 

[Todd Anderson]

Kingsman 4K is always used as reference material at video demos... unfortunately, the stories aren't doing it for me. :-/ Might still have to get this one on the system tho...

Great review, as always!

 

[Michael Scott]

I loved the first STUPIDLY, but this one was more generic for sure. But for demo stuff. Yeah, pure eye and ear candy.