I went with and saw this movie with high expectations, came away utterly disappointed considering I liked the first one.

Where to begin?
Charlie from the first film makes a return.
All Kingsmen are killed aside from Galahad and Merlin.
Drug use/trade is featured prominently, as is bourbon. Being a fan of bourbon - I was curious to see the link.
The "Statesman" bourbon company is publicly traded, and underlying tones of greed/ corporate dichotomy of wealth of shareholders and employees.
Obviously all of Brown & Foreman's goods are shown when they can be.
Jeff Bridges character is good, but he seems to be in his waning years of acting.
Channing Tatum is in the film, but plays what can only be considered a minor role.
Old Galahad is found and plays a suitable part, but it seems overly forced.
Drug use is prevalent in the film.
Sexuality seemed like it was taken from the script of a 1980's X rated flick, especially the "Glastonbury" part.
The president of the US is a republican, and wants all drug uses to die.
There are underlying tones of required Government involvement, which is quite ironic because the Government spy's never picked up the baddy's goals - it was the Kingsmen, an independent agency.
Mechanical Dogs
Running people through food processors
Julianne Moore as the principal baddy - Poppy
Elton John swore in every scene he was in, and there were a hand full.
Eating a human that was run through the food processor.
Princess Tilde is back.

To make matters worse - Merlin is killed off.

The best scene is dinner with princess Tilde's parents.

Halle Berry is a really a great actress, and what she did play in this movie (along with Mark Strong) were the best parts. Eggsy's character is also very well defined, and his acting was good, but the storyline sucked.

I'd give it 2 out of 6 rounds in the revolver. Good enough for the $7 DVD bin, but not worth the movie theatre.

Yeah, I saw a lot of political undertones in the movie, to include impeachment.

The music festival did go a bit far for my tastes.

I really like Eggsy and I loved Merlin's role.

It was still fun, but I did like the first better.

Channing Tatum's character and dance scene was funny.

Very disappointing to hear.

quote:

Originally posted by CD228:
Yeah, I saw a lot of political undertones in the movie, to include impeachment.

Too bad. I enjoyed the first one so much more than I expected. It turns out what with its overall theme and moments like Obama's head, many critics unsurprisingly hated it. Reviews I read obsessed on the violence but the "conservative" undertones clearly rankled them. Sounds like the filmmakers may have felt a need to curry favor.

Still, it was always going to be a problem living up to the first.

quote:

Still, it was always going to be a problem living up to the first.

Especially when they kill off almost everyone (Roxie, JB, and Merlin) from the first movie.

In memory of Merlin:

I was surprised at the number of good characters they offed.

I liked the movie, but agree it wasn't as good as the first. But there was plenty of action, half of it not believable. But I thought it moved along very good and there weren't any boring parts to it and some very funny ones. I felt it was worth seeing at the movies.

Spoiler******



I get the feeling Roxie will be back. You see her jump just before the explosion.

quote:

The president of the US is a republican, and wants all drug uses to die

...and in the previous flick it was Obama playing along with the bad guy.

quote:

I was surprised at the number of good characters they offed.

Like Galahad from the first movie... oh, wait.

It was ok.

Roxie and Merlin both back in 3. And more Channing. I read the reason he was put on ice was by the time they got to filming, he was committed to other projects so he could only be used sparingly in this one.

I saw it today and liked it a lot.

It is just a non-stop ridiculous action movie, and I enjoyed the ride.

Yes, the pro-drug-use theme was very in your face, but one of Eggsy's friends at the end said something along the lines of "I am never touching that shit again!" So...I'm thinking a LOT of other "casual" drug users, after almost dying might be thinking the same thing. You could take it as a huge "don't put unregulated shit into your body - you never know what is in it!" message.

And the President - meh. Generic bad guy. As tanksoldier pointed out, the last movie had Obama going along with the bad guy's plan. And they had his head blow up! Watching some generic dude get frog-marched out of the White House was fairly mild.

It does seem like they feel the need to have at least one cringe-worthy sexual thing happen in each movie. We all know what it was in the first one, and in this one as well.

I liked Elton John. When his face popped up in front of the mechanical dog and they played "Rocket Man" I busted out laughing.

I liked Pedro Pascal a lot. He is doing a great job on Narcos - glad to see him getting some big movie roles.

Overall, it was a fun couple of hours of ridiculousness, which is exactly what I expected.

I like Pedro Pascal a lot, I spent the whole movie wondering what I recognized him from.

I never understood how Poppy's plan was going to work. Threaten to kill drug users IOT get drugs legalized and then sell them to the people you almost killed? Doesn't seem like a good business plan.

Yep. I told several people after seeing the movie that it was what I want a movie to be - pure escapism. Just turn your brain off and enjoy the ride.

At least someone has figured out how you bring people in and don't alienate them.

Re: Sex

I let my 14 year old watch the first one with me tonight (I've seen it a few times). He knew in advance that I was going to mute a scene where Eggsy and the princess were talking (you know the scene) and that I would "fast forward" a certain scene at the end (again, you know the scene).

Watching him nearly in tears laughing during the head exploding fire works was a LOT of fun...

Sounds like I need to pre-watch #2 and time stamp a few scenes first?

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:
Re: Sex

I let my 14 year old watch the first one with me tonight (I've seen it a few times). He knew in advance that I was going to mute a scene where Eggsy and the princess were talking (you know the scene) and that I would "fast forward" a certain scene at the end (again, you know the scene).

Watching him nearly in tears laughing during the head exploding fire works was a LOT of fun...

Sounds like I need to pre-watch #2 and time stamp a few scenes first?

LOLOLOLOL. I'm sure your son and his friends are getting their share of porn off of the internet at 14. Sex in movies would be the least of my worries there.

quote:

LOLOLOLOL. I'm sure your son and his friends are getting their share of porn off of the internet at 14. Sex in movies would be the least of my worries there.

I am sure you are right. My point is that I don’t want to watch those scenes with my 14 year old boy.

of you watch The King’s Man? (Prequel to the 2 Kingsmen movies with Colin Firth)

I’ve heard very mixed reviews on this one. It’s either that tonight or Dead Pool again for the umpteenth time.

I got about 2/3s of the way through The King's Man and haven't bothered trying to fix it. It's not the same type of movie as the first two. It seems to be much more serious but it's not the same standard thriller as one would expect from a spy movie. It just didn't work for me.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed "The King's Man". Was a bit put off by the lead female's character at first thinking the movie was going to be a wokefest but it settled down and got better.

Sure there are some plot holes but, for me, the movie was enjoyable enough to forgive them and go along with the fun of a globetrotting action movie.