Kingsman: The Golden Circled (2017)

Kingsman was a pleasant surprise the first time. But it's much less fun the second go around. It's kind of tired. There's a handful of Oscar winners somehow. It was a miracle they got Colin Firth the first time, but now they've added Julianne Moore, Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges and Sir Elton John. Elton John is just wacky enough to make it work (he might be the strangest and best part of the movie) and Julianne Moore too, but Berry and Bridges are wasted. And I guess that's part of the farce. This movie is quite long. It's unnecessarily more vulgar without a payoff. The action scenes are very exciting. And the Americans are stereotyped maybe a little too on the nose for comfort.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)

Kingsman is to spy movies as Guardians of the Galaxy is to superhero movies.  It is raucous fun, pure action, and unapologetic in its parody of 007.  It is slick and stylish and fraught with graphic comical violence.  Amidst the slew of spy movies we get nowadays (though admittedly not in quite the numbers we get superhero movies), it is refreshing to find a film that can poke fun and lighten the mood of the typical modern spy movie a la dark and serious Daniel Craig.  The interplay between Colin Firth and Samuel L. Jackson is so over the top.  You must take the movie for what it is and just enjoy.