Capsule Review (Minimal spoilers):

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is a sequel to the 2015 film Kingsman: The Secret Service. It puts Eggsy (Taron Egerton) back in the middle of a another plot to “change” the world.

This sequel tries to top the frenetic fight scenes of the first film, but doesn’t quite get there. There is some rather graphic violence, and, to a certain degree, it parallels the storyline of the first film. The Villain is out there, which elevates this film above the usual spy thriller.

I do recommend this film if you’re expecting something slightly better than the usual violent spy/action movie.

Standard Review (with minor plot spoilers)

The Kingsmen support facilities are destroyed early in the film, with only Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) surviving. They come to realize there’s a similar organization in the United States, called the Statesmen, who are effectively cowboy spies. With all these secret spy organizations out there, you’d think they’d be aware of each other, but nope.

The villain, Poppy (Julianne Moore), runs a secret drug cartel that, naturally, supplies most of the drugs to the world. Behind her cheery, but psychotic, behavior is a ruthless drive to be the best, and she clearly is. She demands absolute loyalty, and devises a scheme that will hold the world hostage, until her demands are met. Of course, there’s a deadline, and it’s rapidly approaching.

The deadline approaches, and Poppy chooses to get the US President (Bruce Greenwood) to negotiate, er, capitulate, but that just makes the situation worse. Eggsy has to avoid that ordeal and get to the bottom of it. Poppy is not without her resources, so she’s definitely making his success difficult to achieve.

As I mentioned, there’s some graphic violence, so be forewarned. There’s a celebrity appearance that eventually makes a crack that mimics the similar situation in the first film, which led me down the path of realizing the two movies were very similar in plot, much like James Bond movies are all the same, to a degree. Fortunately, this sequel doesn’t really spend any time telling us how they weren’t James Bond, like the first movie did, so that’s a relief.

I do recommend it if you liked the first film, so long as you don’t have high expectations. If you didn’t like the first, don’t bother with this one.