Why Kingsman's Negative Reviews Are Upsetting

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is the sequel to the smash hit Kingsman: The Secret Service released in 2014 and was one of my favourite films of that year. So naturally I was very excited for the sequel, and while granted I doubt Golden Circle is going to make my top 10 films of the year, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. It had amazing action, great characters, plenty of humour and heart, and despite the 2 and a half hour run time, it never dragged for me. It was a fun thrill ride from beginning to end. Yet despite that, the film got very mixed reviews, currently sitting at a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes. Now I'm not going to deny the film certainly has it's problems, the plot has several large holes, some cast members are used far too little while others far too much, and the explanation on how Colin Firth is alive is complete nonsense. But there's two criticisms that seem to pop up in a lot of the reviews that I really don't agree with. One of them is people saying it's far too silly, and it steers away from the tone of the original film that-while still very over the top-was a pastiche of the James Bond-esque spy films that were popular back in the day. The other is people saying the film repeats far too much from the previous film and doesn't do enough new to justify it's existence.

Here's why that really irks me, Kingsman with only two films to its name, is already getting criticised for being too repetitive. Yet James Bond-the franchise that they're claiming they're steering too far away from has been getting away with doing the exact same thing for 24 films. Now you might make the argument that James Bond is able to keep it fresh by changing up the cast and the tone every few films, after all films like Moonwalker and Casino Royale have practically nothing in common apart from a name. But those are all stylistic changes, changes by the way that are so vast that it should just further the notion that James Bond as a franchise has no core identity and is one of the main reasons it's terr-that's besides the point. Content wise, each Bond film is practically the same, if you were just to explain the plots, what would be different?

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is by no means free from criticism, it does have flaws and yes, the argument that it repeats too much is legitimate. But the idea that this makes it bad, or even unfaithful to the tone of the original is unjustified. It's still a film with fantastic action sequences, likeable characters, creative settings, good music, great art design, and above all else: is fun. Why is that such a crime in films to just want to be fun?

-Danny