All hail the second "Kingsman" movie

Editor's note: Robert Setlock is a movie reviewer who runs the YouTube channel Organized Chaos.[YOUTUBE=KINGSMAN]"Kingsman: The Golden Circle"• Setlock review: **** out of five stars• Rated: R• Runtime: 2 hours, 21 minutes• In theaters nationwide"Kingsman: The Secret Service" was a story designed to bring back the days of those not-so-serious spy movies. Think James Bond movies before Daniel Craig.Sure, they could be serious and dramatic, but there was still this sense of fun that was inescapable:• Villains devised insane plans carried out by henchmen with superpowers.• The hero gets the bad guys, and girls, in style• And finally, and ultimately, the hero saves the day.In many ways, it was a success."Kingsman: The Secret Service" was reminiscent of such Bond films, like "Goldfinger." Both are very good movies with real emotion and stakes, yet with plenty of cringeworthy moments.Therefore, if "The Secret Service" can roughly be equated with the strongest Sean Connery-led James Bond movie, then "The Golden Circle" parallels a stronger Roger Moore-led Bond film. Sure, it's plenty of fun and not nearly as cringeworthy, but it also feels more hollow.Consequently, events have less emotional impact on the heroes and occur not to progress the story but to establish a cool scene."Kingsman: The Golden Circle" picks up from the previous film as we are reintroduced to Eggsy, the brash youth who became a Kingsman (as played by Taron Egerton). He is quickly attacked, and we are brought into one of the film's faux one-shot fight scenes.It's filled with computer animation, leaving me unsure if I should be impressed at all by the technicals of the shots or just looking at cleverly integrated CGI and real life. Either way, it's impressive, though the speed comes dangerously close to headache inducing.His attacker works for Poppy (Julianne Moore), who is the biggest drug dealer on the planet. Her sinister plan? To legalize all drugs in the U.S. I guess the idea is to replicate the villain from the first movie, but it doesn't quite work.Valentine's plan was to fix global warming by killing almost everyone. He's trying to fix a problem by creating a much bigger problem. Here, Poppy poisoned her drugs and will only cure the afflicted if drugs are legalized. Valentine's endgame is unacceptable. Poppy is doing plenty of bad things, but her endgame potentially acceptable or, at least ambiguous.This is just another example of how this movie copies from the original but loses quite a bit in translation. Matthew Vaughn has directed many other comic book adaptations but seemed to always end up out on the sequel. He consistently does a great job, so it is an inexplicable shame to lose him for the follow through.Now he has a sequel to one of his own films under his belt, and he manages to do well while he simultaneously disappoints."Kingsman: The Golden Circle" is easily Vaughn's worst movie. Fortunately for him, even his worst movie is still plenty fun.Setlock, RobertChanning Tatum, left, and Halle Berry both star in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle."