Tony Talks: Why I Hated Kingsman, The Golden Circle
It was pretty clear by both professional and common opinion that Kingsman: The Golden Circle was bad. As I watched it, I felt like cringing almost the entire way through. Pushing past all of the forced music choices, awkward sex shenanigans and flat line delivery, there was one element that I think brought this entire movie down, and if it had been addressed differently it could've made this movie much, much better.
What was that element, you ask? Simple. The villain. Holy Jesus did I hate the villain of this movie, Poppy Adams. Talk about the most underdeveloped character in movie history. They were attempting to push a sort of 'cutesy villain' vibe with her, which has maybe been done successfully a total of 15 times and unsuccessfully about a million.
SPOILERS
Instead of focusing on just her traits, let's instead focus on her 'master plan.' For those who didn't watch the movie, Poppy Adams runs a massive drug cartel out of South America called the 'Golden Circle', and the Golden Circle produces all kinds of drugs like weed, opioids, meth and heroin, etc. After creating a business so lucrative that she is able to build a 70's America themed fortress in the jungle and a network that spans globally, this master businesswoman (according to herself) decides that the best course of action would be to start lacing all of her drugs with a deadly virus. The reason, you ask? Well, it's to hold the world hostage, of course. Since only she has the cure to the disease, the idea is that the leaders of the world would have to make her drugs legal, and once they do that she will release the antidote worldwide with an army of drones and then she can be the nationally recognized businesswoman she always wanted to be.
Now, do you see the problem with her plan? No? Well, how about the fact that attempting to hold the world hostage painted THE BIGGEST TARGET on her head, for not just the Kingsman and the Statesmen but also no doubt every government system across the globe. The fact that she hijacked the TV signal and broadcasted her plan to everyone in the world didn't help the situation either, since every person who sees her face now knows that she's the woman who poisoned the world. Those reasons combined with others brought out the only foreseeable outcome; someone either putting a bullet in her head or someone killing her in some other way, I.e. overdosing her on heroin.
I'm sure you're asking yourself, 'well, Tony, if you're so goddamn knowledgeable about this then what would you have done?' Simple. I would have kept my damn head down and continued to run my multinational drug cartel like I have been doing in the past. Think about it. The Kingsman don't even know about the Golden Circle until they intentionally make moves against them, and when Iggsy goes to the Statesmen and tells them about the Golden Circle, Champ tells him that they'll 'look into it', meaning that they had no goddamn idea that the Golden Circle even existed. On top of that, it's clear that the Golden Circle has facilities in other places than South America, meaning that even though they are a massive cartel their presence is virtually unknown to the world. Why in the hell would you completely blow all of your anonymity by holding the world hostage? And all to be recognized as a businesswoman? I mean, you couldn't be happy with being the kind of organization that can successfully kidnap Elton John seemingly without repercussions?
Now let's talk about the aftermath in the event she successfully carried out her plan. The world makes her products legal and she distributes her serum. Now, I ask you, as a partaker in drugs in this world would you EVER buy merchandise from the Golden Circle ever again? Hell to the fucking NO! You remember that Poppy Adams is the kind of drug kingpin that is willing to kill her customers whenever she doesn't feel respected, so the responsible choice would be to flush all her drugs down the toilet and go to the shady guy in the apartment building across from you, like everyone. Her business would plummet within months, and all the money and prestige she wanted would disappear.
Alright, I'm done ranting. I don't think that simply replacing the villain would have fixed this movie, but it would've made their blow on my cringe receptors softer.
