After releasing a teaser last week that was cut so quickly it should have come with a seizure warning, it’s with a nervous excitement that we bring you the first trailer for Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Look at those stunts! Look at that cast! Look! It’s Colin Firth shaving!
The first Kingsman, while a massive success in its own right, had the absolute misfortune to come out a few weeks before the first John Wick, and that movie’s insanely relatable premise and badass action caused the former to be passed over in critical circles. It was based off of Mark Millar (boo!) and Dave Gibbons’ (yay!) comic miniseries The Secret Service, and was full of enough Millar bluster and tastelessness to overshadow the genuinely great casting (Taron Egerton was a legitimately great find) and the impressive action filmmaking on the part of director Matthew Vaughn, who returned to comic-book adaptations and the arms of his Kick-Ass collaborator Millar after making the X-Men franchise suck a lot less with First Class.
Here’s a protip: When it comes to comic book movies, the sequel is (usually) better than the original, and the third entry typically sucks worse than the first. You can see this play out in any given franchise: Spider-Man 2 is way better than Spider-Man, X2 is better than X-Men, Hellboy: The Golden Army, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, et cetera. Hell, it even happened to Batman twice (Batman Returns and The Dark Knight being considered the best films of their respective eras). Even the few duds amongst these have almost always been worth a watch, just because of how legendarily bad they are (Amazing Spider-Man 2, Rise of the Silver Surfer).
And from what we can see, The Golden Circle looks like it’s going to continue that streak. Now freed from the burden of the origin story plot and any fidelity to the source material, Vaughn is allowed to go as batshit crazy as he wants to. And the improvements are already look like they’re there! Channing Tatum as a Statesman (an American Kingsman, basically)? Julianne Moore as the villain? Jeff Bridges and Elton John starring in the same movie?
We’re sold!
Here’s an official synopsis:
‘Kingsman: The Secret Service’ introduced the world to Kingsman — an independent, international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion, whose ultimate goal is to keep the world safe. In ‘Kingsman: The Golden Circle,’ our heroes face a new challenge. When their headquarters are destroyed and the world is held hostage, their journey leads them to the discovery of an allied spy organization in the US called Statesman, dating back to the day they were both founded. In a new adventure that tests their agents’ strength and wits to the limit, these two elite secret organizations band together to defeat a ruthless common enemy, in order to save the world, something that’s becoming a bit of a habit for Eggsy…”
Kingsman: The Golden Circle hits theaters on September 22.
