Chris At The Pictures

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

This prequel, sequel and so much more than equal to 2008’s surprise smash hit plays to every strength of its ludicrous premise, star-studded cast and indestructible jukebox soundtrack. Amanda Seyfried returns as Sophie, no longer planning the wedding of her dreams but instead a celebration for her recently passed mother and former Dancing Queen, Donna (Meryl Streep). The narrative flits between Sophie’s attempts to do right by her mother, her longing for distant Man After Midnight, Sky (Dominic Cooper) and the past flings of the young Donna (Lily James).

One might argue that having a predisposition to ABBA might make you a tad biased towards Here We Go Again (as the proud inheritor of a signature edition CD of their greatest hits, I plead guilty), but I’d argue that anyone with a beating heart would feel the same. It doesn’t matter how reluctant you feel going in, how utterly illogical the timeframes, nor how much your ears bleed from Pierce Brosnan’s crooning; the instant Seyfried lets loose the first strains of ‘Thank You For The Music’, the battle is all but lost.

The first Mamma Mia is a fun film. The second is a great one. It’s funnier (a single line from Christine Baranski damn near slew me), better-looking, genuinely well-acted and has emotion simply bursting from every pore. James is a total dream in the lead role, and her supporting cast take up the challenge with fizzing aplomb. The three younger incarnations of Sam, Harry and Bill (Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård hand the stage to Jeremy Irvine, Hugh Skinner and Josh Dylan) are all suitably dashing. Gold stars are awarded to supporting turns from Cher (in a late appearance as Sophie’s grandmother) and Omid Djalili (playing a perfectly po-faced passport officer).

The songs are still largely crowbarred in, but this time around it’s a knowing, satisfying kind of shoehorn delivered by a script that knows exactly what you came for. Besides a smattering or reprisals, the chosen playlist is rife with a selection of underplayed classics (‘Angeleyes’ was a particular hit with my tear ducts) and pushes the boundaries of credulity beyond breaking point: the circumstances surrounding a performance of ‘Fernando’ are so incredulous that you’ll positively (if not literally) shriek with joy. And joy is the dish of the day in this smorgasbord of cheese, cheers and Cher, making Here We Go Again the surest hit of this summer: boy, is it gonna make money, money, money.

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Matthew Vaughn’s spy series makes a haphazard pivot from ‘parody of bad Bond films’ to ‘bad parody of itself’ in this simultaneously listless yet overblown sequel. Taron Egerton returns as Eggsy, now left with only Mark Strong’s agent Merlin for company when the Kingsman organisation is all-but obliterated around them. Their enemy: Julianne Moore’s drug overlord, Poppy, a sugary-voiced villainess with a penchant for human meat burgers, robots, and Elton John.

The first Kingsman was very much a Marmite film: you were either won over by its homegrown Bond/Bourne/Bauer pastiche or disgusted by its button-pushing. Being an awkward sort, I fell somewhere in the middle, appreciating the unabashed comic violence and Alex Rider overtones but blanching somewhat at its seedier elements, particularly that final bum note (pun fully intended).

Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman have clearly taken the controversy over Hanna Alström’s backside deeply to heart…and doubled-down. Partway through The Golden Circle (which sees Eggsy and Merlin join forces with their American counterparts, the Statesman), Egerton’s character is tasked with tagging the girlfriend of an enemy agent with a tracking device. With no explanation besides a sly wink from Pedro Pascal’s Agent Whiskey and a shrugged “It’s not going up her nose!”, our hero is to secrete the tracker within the genitalia of the oblivious Clara (Poppy Delevigne). After calling his girlfriend to ask her permission (which she does not give), Eggsy commits. As composers Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson deliver a heroic fanfare, Matthew “bloody feminists” Vaughn treats us to a close-up the likes of which a certain orange-faced misogynist would call “Tremendous”.

Looking for any excuse for this abhorrence, some fans might reach for The Golden Circle’s plethora of great female roles. They’d come up short. Halström is a plot motivation, Eggsy’s classmate Roxy is blown to smithereens in the opening salvo, and Halle Berry (playing Merlin’s equivalent in the Statesman organization) is exposition in a wig.

Moore’s villain finds me yet again confused as to why I’m supposed to dislike the Kingsman antagonists (decapitation bombs and cannibal fast food hobbies aside). Hot on the heels of Samuel L. Jackson’s eco-warrior from the first film, Poppy’s demand to the government is the legalization and supervised access to recreational drugs, an aim that makes her more sympathetic than the brutish Anglo-American spies bulldozing their way across the globe to find her (at least, until her relationship with the US president is revealed, to more sinister ends).

Her beaming smile as she feeds Keith Allen into a mincer provides some glee, as do the rough-and-tumble brawls towards the film’s conclusion. A robot arm-wielding henchman allows for some inventive choreography, and in the long-take ballets of umbrellas and uppercuts, it’s easy to see where the budget’s been spent. It certainly didn’t go towards the CGI, which is replete with green-screen outlines and aliasing as digital models of buildings, landscapes and cages meld into one-another.

You may have noticed I haven’t got around to mentioning the other big names from the poster campaign: Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, and the inexplicable return of Colin Firth as Harry Hart. I only thought it fair to give them their representation as reflected by the film. Tatum is little more than a cameo appearance, Bridges is…well, Bridges, and I’m still not entirely convinced that Firth ever showed up. There’s a catchphrase-spouting waxwork doing an impression of him, though, the artifice of which is further exacerbated by Egerton’s uncrackable charisma.

As for Moore, her total screen-time is eclipsed by that of her popstar prisoner. John’s gormlessly smug guest spot culminates in his offering free tickets to his next gig, should the Kingsman help him escape. If his eye-scraping appearance here is any indication of his current talents, he can keep them.