Following on the heels of 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Serviceand 2017’s Kingsman: The Golden Circlecomes a prequel film, The King’s Man, and the second movie trailer has just arrived from 20th Century Fox (we previewed the first trailer here at borg last July). Delayed for re-shoots and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the studio now has its sights set on a September premiere in theaters (we’re not holding our breath). Stepping into an early Kingsman of the type perfected by Colin Firth is the actor who should have played a Bond (but ended up as another M), the BAFTA-winning, twice Academy Award-nominated actor Ralph Fiennes. The young recruit that looks to mimic that series hero Eggsy played by Taron Egerton in the first two films this time goes to Harris Dickinson(Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance).
Following on the heels of 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Serviceand 2017’s Kingsman: The Golden Circlecomes a prequel film, The King’s Man, and the first movie trailer has just arrived from the new 20th Century Fox. Stepping into an early Kingsman of the type perfected by Colin Firth is the actor who should have played a Bond (but ended up as another M), the BAFTA-winning, twice Academy Award-nominated actor Ralph Fiennes. The young recruit that looks to mimic that series hero Eggsy played by Taron Egerton in the first two films this time goes to Harris Dickinson, soon to be voicing a character in Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
As with the prior films The King’s Manappears stylish, but with a historical England twist. Expect again wall-to-wall, part dark comedy, and that over-the-top, operatic violence. Series director Matthew Vaughn(Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, X-Men: First Class, Layer Cake) continues to make his mark on the action genre, with his own British spy genre tale mixing the vibe of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Avengers of the 1960s, based on the 2012 The Secret Service: Kingsman comic book series from award-winning creators Mark Millar(Kick-Ass, Old Man Logan) and Dave Gibbons (Watchmen).
Every great British spy story needs a Bond girl, and whether she’s a “King’s Man” or foil, this time the choice is actual former Bond girl Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters) to take over where Sofia Boutella left off in the first movie. You’ll also find a familiar face with Captain Marvel and Shazam!’s Djimon Hounsou. The King’s Manreflects a cast list that includes superhero go-to guy Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Avengers: Age of Ultron),Stanley Tucci(Captain America: The First Avenger),Rhys Ifans (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), Daniel Bruhl (Captain America: Civil War, Falcon and Winter Soldier), Charles Dance (Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Gosford Park),Watchmen and Downton Abbey’sMatthew Goode, and Pirates of the Caribbean and Bohemian Rhapsody’sTom Hollander as King George V.
Take a look at the first trailer for The King’s Man:
It’s been one long year of great entertainment. Before we wrap our coverage of 2017, it’s time for the fifth annual round of new honorees for the borg Hall of Fame. We have plenty of honorees from 2017 films, plus many from past years, and a peek at some from the future. You can always check out the updated borg Hall of Fame on our home page under “Know your borg.”
In anticipation of the 2017 film Logan, last year we added Old Man Logan, Laura/X-23, and cyborg-armed mercenary Donald Pierce. We also added Scarlet Johansson’s character The Major, previewing 2017’s live-action film The Ghost in the Shell.
We didn’t get the big ballroom at our venue reserved early enough for the induction ceremony this year, so it limited us to tapping only 24 named characters into the revered Hall of Fame this year.
As with last year, we’re granting a few early entrances this year, first to Simone Missick’s badass cop Misty Knight, who is getting a borg arm for season two of Luke Cage in 2018.
And here is an early look at Josh Brolin’s Cable, from 2018’s Deadpool sequel. The borg comic book character Cable was a first round honoree to the Hall, so this is just another update to the character.
Onto this year… Kingsman’s almost-a-Kingsman Charlie was thought to have been killed off in the first film. But he was back in the 2017 film Kingsman: The Golden Circle, sporting cyborg components.
A host of new borgs–Replicants in Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?–returned to the big screen in Blade Runner 2049, including some new names and faces, like Ryan Gosling’s K …
What shines through in Kingsman: The Golden Circle,Tim Waggoner‘s novelization of this summer’s successful sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service is how lead spy Eggsy is so different from James Bond. Even Ian Fleming’s later Bond novels don’t include the fast-paced, extended action sequences found in modern spy stories like this latest foray into the genre. Both spies are dressed to the nines, they have a tech whiz supporting their efforts, and a smarter, wiser mentor guiding them. But that’s where they veer apart. Taking a graphic novel based world, then translating it to film, and back to prose requires certain elements be retained and others fleshed out. Waggoner’s latest novel strikes the right balance–it is loyal to the source material, an interesting deep-dive into each of the story’s characters, and a fun read. It’s also a good opportunity to compare the world of the Kingsman to other spy novels.
Eggsy, as seen on the screen, requires the viewer to get into his head to try to understand his motivations if he is to be something other than a plugged-in action hero. His quick reactions are part of what defines the character and the Kingsmen–these are not simply the best agents but agents that are confident and cocky and their moves fully back up the confidence. In the novel we see that Eggsy is as nice a guy as he is a brilliantly tuned, results-driven machine. When he must get into bed with a target to plant a tracking device, he first hides in the bathroom to call his girlfriend. Is he unwilling to commit to her because he is a James Bond womanizer? No, he just hasn’t thought that far, in part because he’s a dumb street kid thrust into the spy world.
As we read earlier this year in Donald E. Westlake’s superb Forever and a Death, modern spy stories–like every new Bond movie–require more intrigue, more double crosses, more politics, and maybe something new. Kingsman: The Golden Circle provides all of this. The “new” is found in different places–in your face and over-the-top violence that draws from the Coen Brothers and Tarantino, a lead who is more street urchin than London elite, a villain that out-crazies every Bond villain you can think of, and the real twist–a crime that seems to draw more from the zombie genre than the spy genre.
The new sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service (reviewed here at borg.com) starts as you’d hope for, immediately slamming viewers into high gear with a frenetic car chase featuring BAFTA-winning actor Taron Egerton’s Brit spy Eggsy, defending himself from a kidnapping with the same level of over-the-top superhero moves that saved him from similar threats in the first film. After the introduction of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which opens this Friday nationwide, the film loses the freshness and style of the original and shifts from a faithful James Bond homage to Bond as it might be interpreted by the Coen Brothers. Where the original careened into the stuff of a Quentin Tarantino film in its major action sequences, the sequel shifts into a quirky blend of gore, explosives, and caricatures that moves beyond Bond homage to more of an Austin Powers parody.
The sequel offers up a top tier cast. BAFTA winner Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes, Stardust, Kick-Ass, Green Lantern, John Carter, Zero Dark Thirty) returns as Merlin and–no surprise from the trailers–Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, Shakespeare in Love, Pride and Prejudice) is back as agent Galahad and Edward Holcroft (Wolf Hall) returns as rejected Kingsman Charlie. Audiences saw both die in the original. Firth is picture-perfect in every scene, as if he was always destined to have a 007 role. Holcroft, who you might easily mistake for Chris Evans, offers up a more fleshed out character this round, and he gets some of the better one-on-one battles against Eggsy, complete with a nifty Swiss Army multi-functional borg arm.
New to the world of the Kingsmen are their American spy agency counterparts. The leader is played by Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, RIPD, Hell or High Water, Tron, True Grit, Iron Man) in a classic Southern-accented delivery, appearing for a few brief scenes. Pedro Pascal (The Great Wall, The Adjustment Bureau, Game of Thrones, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), whose moustache makes him a ringer for a 1970s Burt Reynolds, breaks out in his performance as an agent with some mad lasso skills. And true to form, genre favorite Channing Tatum (21 Jump Street) shows up with the swagger of a Southern lawman, but in only the briefest of scenes, much like his smaller roles in G.I. Joe: Retribution and Hail, Caesar! The U.S. spy squad is full of Hee Haw-vibed caricatures of Americans, albeit echoing Joe Don Baker’s drawling U.S. roles in three Bond movies (The Living Daylights, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies). The women have the better parts in Kingsman: The Golden Circle: Academy Award winner Halle Barry (X-Men series, Catwoman, Monster’s Ball) is the American “Q” with the nicely Ian Fleming name of Ginger Ale–the former “Bond girl” flipping sides this time from Bond co-lead and love interest (Die Another Day) to the current Ben Whishaw I.T. guru role. And Academy Award winner Julianne Moore (The Big Lebowski, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Children of Men) is the film’s villain, a drug kingpin named Poppy–a strange, comic books-meet-Coen Brothers baddie bent on world domination, with scary calm Jack Nicholson Joker insanity and a 1950s chic. We’ve seen some Bond villains far out there, but Moore’s Poppy is one who could out-crazy them all.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle, the sequel to the 2014 spy movie Kingsman: The Secret Service, is coming to the theaters in a few weeks. If you didn’t see the original, it was probably because of its rather uninspired title. But don’t wait any longer. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a blast. And it’s streaming right now. Kingsman: The Secret Service stars Colin Firth as a secret agent in a new brand of 007 series, as he attempts to recruit the next member of the Kingsman organization, the son of a former agent, played by Taron Egerton. It’s stylish. It’s wall-to-wall action. It’s part dark comedy. And its over-the-top violence is operatic and epic. The last time we had this much fun was watching Roddy Piper and Keith David in They Live.
For those hoping Firth would ever be tapped as Bond, this is every bit that, only Firth’s master spy has moves like no Bond ever had. One scene provides so much hand-to-hand combat you’d think you were watching Kill Bill, and the Quentin Tarantino influence doesn’t stop there. You’d almost think the retired director was the ghost director behind the mayhem in the film’s climactic battle. It’s just as well, as actual director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, X-Men: First Class, Layer Cake) proves again he knows the action genre.
Every great British spy story needs a Bond girl, and Sofia Boutella’s Gazelle is up there with the best. Her missing lower legs (no, we never learn why) were replaced with steel blades, blades that can kill–and very much do. Think of Bond girls played by Famke Janssen and Grace Jones, and Boutella fits right in. Every bit the combat equal to Firth and Egerton’s spies, Gazelle is practically a character missing from Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies. Continue reading →
We’re running down several trailers released to start off San Diego Comic-Con this week. One trailer defines what Comic-Con is all about, as Stan Lee looks at the Netflix series based on his creations. The best trailer is Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, the fantasy director’s next monster movie, this time featuring his own take on the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Another good trailer is what plays out as a commercial for the giant robot “Jaegers” in a first look at the sequel Pacific Rim: Uprising, including star John Boyega (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Attack the Block). Below you’ll also find trailers for Kingsman: The Golden Circle,The LEGO Ninjago Movie, Natalie Portman in Planetarium, and the fantasy world version of the AlienNation buddy cop trope, Netflix’s Bright, starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton.
We’re also including several trailers from the past week to get you caught up. These include A Wrinkle in Time, Mary Poppins Returns, Blade Runner 2049, a teaser for The Incredibles 2 (sort of), and a Blu-ray preview for Gifted starring Chris Evans.
20th Century Fox released a teaser last month for Kingsman: The Golden Circle, and last week followed up with a full preview, including an intriguing cyborg. The secret British spy organization is coming back to theaters this year and the sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service stars a top-notch cast including Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry, Taron Egerton, Channing Tatum, and Julianne Moore.
Edward Holcroft returns as Taron Egerton’s stuck-up nemesis, Charlie Hesketh. But this time he’s sporting interchangeable arms, no doubt a future contender for the borg.comHall of Fame.
Check out this first, full-length preview for Kingsman: The Golden Circle:
The 2014 surprise hit Kingsman: The Secret Service showed the world what it would be like for Colin Firth–the not so secret man all women want to be with since his role in the 1995 costume drama mini-series Pride & Prejudice–to play James Bond (or someone pretty close). The secret British spy organization is coming back to theaters this year.
The sequel to Kingsman: The Secret Service, titled Kingsman: The Golden Circle, stars a top-notch cast including Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Jeff Bridges, Halle Berry, Taron Egerton, Channing Tatum, and Julianne Moore.
Check out this teaser for The Kingsman: The Golden Circle:
