The sequel to “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” moves to the U.S. but with a familiar plot and an ineffective villain, it isn’t worth the trip.

Kingsman: “The Golden Circle” is the sequel to Kingsman: “Secret Service” directed by Matthew Vaughn. “The Golden Circle” takes place after the first movie and follows the Kingsman as they attempt to foil another villain’s plan.

The villain this time is Poppy, played by Juliannne Moore, who is a drug dealer trying to legalize drugs in the U.S. through deadly blackmail tactics. While this may have been a cool villain in another movie, it was not as effective as Samuel L. Jackson’s villainous character from the first movie. The plot of this movie also felt familiar and didn’t add anything to make it stand out from the first movie.

The big addition to this film were the Statesman, the American version of the Kingsman. The Statesman included Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry and Pedro Pascal, and they all felt forced into the movie and took away from the real stars of the film. Tatum and Berry both had small, forgettable roles.

Colin Firth had another good performance as Harry Hart, but it didn’t feel as authentic as his first performance in “The Secret Service.” Taron Egerton gave a fine performance as “Eggsy” but had little to no character development.

While the acting in the movie was fine by most, all of the characters felt thrown in there with little to no reason why other than to have a sequel.

There were some redeeming qualities to the movie, including some of the action sequences, quick humor and one fun celebrity cameo. The plentiful amount of action in “The Golden Circle” was fun, but there will never be a scene as good as the church scene from the first movie.

Verdict:

This film lacked the heart of the first one, so many who loved “Secret Service” will find this to be a disappointing sequel. While there was fun action and humor, most of the film felt weighed down by the boring new characters and lack of character development for the old ones. You would be best off sitting down and re-watching the original instead of going to see this.

5.5/10