Did the movie need to kill off nearly everyone (except Mark Strong’s Merlin, who’s still there to provide tactical support) simply to introduce Statesman, which operates behind the cover of a successful whiskey brand, as opposed to Kingsman’s posh Saville Row suit shop (the costumes are tip-top, as always). Now his minders - Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges and Channing Tatum, cashing paychecks to play members of Kingsman’s yankee counterpart, Statesman - need to recreate a past shock or trauma to “reboot” his brain. Same goes for Harry’s “retrograde amnesia”: He may not be dead, but he’s forgotten who he is, remembering only his youthful ambition to be a lepidopterist (or butterfly collector). It blurs the stakes and makes it impossible to know what, if anything, the risks of operating in such an otherwise-lethal world are. Later, when a major character blows himself up in their honor, not only does that gesture seem like a waste (you want to tell him to wait, since Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman will surely find a way to bring them back, especially right-hand woman Roxy), but it also raises the question of whether he’s really gone.īasically, Vaughn is playing with gravity here: When you change the fundamental rules of action-movie storytelling as radically as the “Kingsman” series does, then these adventures may as well be taking place on the moon, where a normal human can jump tall buildings. Are they really dead? Well, the geo-targeted missiles certainly look accurate, but if Harry Hart can walk away from a fatal head wound - and if Charlie can survive losing his head altogether - don’t be surprised to see any or all of them resurface in a sequel.
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