Kingsman: The Golden Circle clarifies the idea of a rare breed of movie that is so irritating and meandering that the idea of getting a root canal seems more appealing than sitting through it. This speaks volumes for the credence of the movie, especially when it is a high speed actioner. When the assault on one’s senses continue for two hours and 21 minutes, you are not left in a sound frame of mind to see any good in the movie (not that I am saying Kingsman: The Golden Circle had any). The sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) is shiny and smart-looking, thanks to its production and costume design. While those are pretty to gawk at, the rest is a downward spiral that makes you feel dumb, just by viewing it. Story-wise, the sequel is even more crass and sexist than its predecessor.

In this installment, Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) is still the best guy at Kingsman – the high end tailor shop that is actually a cover for a spy agency. Eggsy is tracked and hacked by Charlie Hesketh (Edward Holcroft), who makes a return from the last part and now works for a new villain called Poppy (Julianne Moore). Poppy is a drug cartel madame, who lives in an isolated hideout and is obsessed with 1950’s America – which is why she and her lair, and villain tend to mimic that era. She has a salon where anyone who joins her is imprinted with a tattoo of pure gold circle burned into their skin. Her method of expelling people from her gang is by putting them hands first in a giant meat grinder, cook their raw meat into a burger patty and feed it to the new recruit.

Poppy has a big plan, where she has spiked all drugs with a virus that will kill the user in days if her demands are not met. She also, single-handedly, destroys Kingsman. With no where to go, Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong) fly over to Kentucky and shake hands with The Statesman – a brother organisation of Kingsman in the United States that no one knows about. The Statesman works the same as the Kingsman, but they have more money at their disposal (the British spies sell clothes to keep them running and act as a cover, while Statesman sell whiskey). Given their business, The Statesman’s staff have liquor appropriate names for everyone, like Tequila (Channing Tatum), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), Champagne “Champ” (Jeff Bridges) and Ginger Ale (Halle Berry) – all throwaway characters, by the way.

Director Matthew Vaughn has shown once more that he has no sense for action or comedic timing. The humour worked only to a degree in the prequel (Samuel L. Jackson brought his own manic energy to the character of Richmond Valentine). Here, the villain is a complete miss with Julianne Moore. The rest of the cast delivers same lifeless, pointless performance as Moore – however, special recognition goes to Colin Firth, who could easily win the race for the most lifeless actor in a motion picture. However, to be fair, I was grimacing as much as Firth by end of this messy sorry affair, so maybe his acting had some genuineness to it. •