Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) * *

Directed by:  Matthew Vaughn

Starring:  Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Elton John, Pedro Pascal, Mark Strong, Bruce Greenwood

If I had written this review immediately upon viewing this film, I might've given it two and a half stars, but upon reflection two stars is my final rating.    This sequel to the surprise 2014 hit clocks in at a bloated two hours, twenty minutes and doesn't know when to quit.    The original film saved the heads exploding for the final half hour.    This sequel starts off bloody and doesn't stop assaulting us with violence and action strewn out over a soundtrack of pop/rock songs like "Saturday's Night's Alright for Fighting", which is of course sung by Elton John, who appears in an extended cameo and looking like he might kill his agent for getting him into this.

There are clever gadgets and a couple of neat action sequences while the actors give the material a little more heft than it deserves.    The cast, which includes Oscar winners Firth, Bridges, Moore, and Berry are doing their best with what they have.    Elton John is also an Oscar winner (for 1994's Best Original Song for The Lion King).    The rest are capable actors who are at home in the action, although Egerton's Eggsy, who learned to be a secret agent with mad skills in the first film, is a bit dull for a lead.   

The plot involves the Kingsman, whose headquarters are blown up by the diabolical, yet outwardly perky drug queenpin Poppy (Moore), and must team with their American counterparts Statesman, which uses a whiskey distillery as its front (led by Jeff Bridges and featuring Tatum as Agent Tequila, Berry as Ginger Ale, and Pascal as Whiskey--get it?) to stop Poppy.    Poppy taints her drug supply with a virus which eventually kills its users, and Poppy ransoms the President of the United States (Greenwood) for money in exchange for an antidote.    Poppy's lair is way off the grid in a remote jungle in which every building in her compound has a 50's theme to it.    So ruthless is Poppy, she has her henchmen who screw up killed, ground into a meat grinder, and then cooked into a burger.    We then see another would-be henchman eat the burger as a final phase of initiation.    This over-the-top gross out makes me long for exploding heads.

We also find out that Harry Hart (Firth), Eggsy's mentor who was presumed dead in the first film after being shot in the head, is very much alive, but has amnesia and has no knowledge of his past.   The Statesman invented a method for preserving the brain after head shots which allowed Harry to survive, and although I doubt the science behind it, it is amusing to see in practice.    We know just as night follows day that Harry will regain his memory and soon after his form as a mannered killing machine. 

I'm sure there will be more Kingsman films to come.    I don't know what else can be done with the concept.    We've seen our share of Bond parodies and lately the parodies have been better than the Bond films themselves.    Matthew Vaughn's ultra violent series ups the ante on bloodshed and body parts flying around, but do we really need to see more?