‘Kingsman’ – a movie that details on the clash between American and English culture – is a celebration of Britannia, says Mathew Vaughn. ‘Kingsman – The Golden Circle’ director Matthew Vaughn makes a sequel to his hit 2015 spy flick and reteams Taron Egerton with Colin Firth and adds Julianne Moore, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry and Jeff Bridges. When the headquarters are destroyed and the world is held hostage, the Kingsman’s journey leads them to the discovery of an allied spy organisation in the US. These two elite secret organisations must band together to defeat a common enemy. The first film had class at its centre, a spy film built around British snobbery, class relations, caricatured out into extremes, while, ‘Kingsman – The Golden Circle’, which finds the British tailors decimated and forced to join forces with a whiskey manufacturing US spy network called “Statesman” and featuring such personages as Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges and Halle Berry, is even more detailed, intriguing and filled with suspense. As action-packed as the movie is, it does not let the viewers leave their seats. That’s in part because the pacing is so spavined; the movie lurches twitchily from set piece to set piece and spends inordinate amounts of time on shots of its sharp-dressed characters slow-motioning into the wide screen frames showing off accessories – thrilling and exceptionally entertaining. Matthew Vaughn and his co-screenwriter, Jane Goldman, have gone beyond the comic book to introduce new villains, as well as new allies from Statesman, the American version of ‘Kingsman’. Director, Matthew Vaughn also believes that the music is what picks the film off the screen and into the hearts of the people. Therefore, much hype has been received as the movie is starring the English singer, Elton John. Published in Daily Times, September 25th 2017.