Film: 'Kingsman - The Golden Circle'

On one level this is a monumentally daft film of the third in the 'Kingsman' sequence of comic-book originals - and yet I didn't find it quite the dud that many have done, my being mentally engaged for much of its extra-long 2 hours 20, which would have benefitted by being shorn of a good 50 mins. Nevertheless, it maintained what I assume is the simple and silly child-like atmosphere of its source material - namely set piece of conflict after set piece, the protagonists always ending up without a scratch against a multiple onslaught of weapons, both from humans and robots, as well as fists - and all with barely enough time in between in which to take a breath.

Colin Firth leads a roll-call of well-known names  - Julianne Moore, Jeff Bridges, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Channing Tatum - with a thoroughly embarrassing Elton John where, for some reason, a large part of the audience when I attended, found every one of his too many appearances super-hilarious! 
In this yarn of London-based, Secret Service, dapper men-in-suits (Taron Egerton, with Firth and Strong) are armed with a range of gadgets, which would have turned even 007 green with envy, and are struggling against nasty world-threatening drugs trader-baroness (Moore) who, from her headquarters in South America, has infected internationally, widely-used 'recreational' drugs with fatal consequences, except that she alone has enormous supplies of the antidote, the release of which depends on the American President agreeing to her wicked demands.  
The basically simple plot had a lot of heavy weather made out of it. I felt that the explanation of how Firth, after being killed off in the previous film, is 'resurrected' with this being depicted in such a fashion as though the film-makers themselves were far from convinced that it would work. Also, his regaining of his former personality was over-extended, and hence just starting to get boring.  

The CGI chaps must have had a field day in their creation of the many fights, most of which come up to the expected standard for films of today.  

This is director and writer Matthew Vaughn's second 'Kingsman' film though I did prefer his previous effort ('The Secret Service' of 2014), the second in this series, this latest one following the expected pattern. I can't see any fans of the series being especially disappointed by what he does here.

Not much else to say. Further analysis would imply that the film deserves more weighty significance than it actually does. I gave the previous 'Kingsman' feature a rating of '7'. I accord this with a .............5.5.