Sequels in Hollywood tend to follow the tried and true formula of being “the same, but different.” Kingsman: The Secret Service was a violent breath of fresh air for the spy genre, harkening back to the older, ridiculous Bond films, while having nothing but contempt for the more recent grim iterations starring Daniel Craig. Kingsman: The Golden Circle is, unfortunately, the bad type of sequel; the kind that self indulgently wallows in its predecessor’s footsteps, while only introducing stale ideas and underdeveloped characters. The Golden Circle attempts to mask its flaws with its action and crude humor, but ultimately is a poor, bloated imitation of Kingsman: The Secret Service.

A charismatic supervillain with idiosyncratic quirks attempts to dominate the world with their cyborg sidekick. The Kingsmen are put on the defensive and have to stop the villainous duo with limited resources to save the world. This is a word for word description of the plot of the first movie...and also the plot of the second movie. The film does attempt to add a couple new wrinkles to the story by presenting an American version of The Kingsman, The Statesmen, but this is nothing more than window dressing. Also, it’s pretty amazing to me that The Statesmen and The Kingsmen have never heard of one another despite being near omniscient super-spy agencies with limitless budgets.