It’s as American as apple pie. Thursday marked the start of San Diego Comic Con and with it came the new trailer for Kingsman: The Golden Circle. All of our favorite characters are back (apparently) with a ton of new additions from their “American cousins”. Having watched the trailer a good twenty times now, here are a couple of observations. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, give it a look. It’s sharp.
Warning: These could be potential spoilers but I have no information to work with other than some concept art and what we’ve seen in the trailers.
Let’s start with the Kingsmen themselves. They get ROCKED. One of the big questions coming out of the original trailer was “Sure, HQ is destroyed but there are other Kingsmen out in the field. Why don’t they seem to be involved in the rest of the movie?” Well we have an answer. We learn from a voiceover that the villain Poppy (we’ll get to her later) seems to taking them all out at the same time. A Kingsman Order 66, if you will. We seem Kingsmen holograms disappearing one by one. Obviously Eggsy and Merlin survive. It is unclear as to whether any other knights make it out alive. Lookin at you, Roxy.
On to Eggsy. He seems to be a full Kingsman now. Going on missions and jumping on cars. There are some pretty excellent action sequences featuring bellhops and diner attendants that highlight Eggsy’s improved skills between films. It isn’t clear why Eggsy survives the incident that eliminates the other Kingsmen. It could be that the car chase is Eggsy’s assasination and he survives but I doubt it. Eggsy is wearing an orange smoking jacket in the shot where he discovers the tailor show destroyed and he is wearing a traditional suit in the car chase.
Now the Statesman are the focus of this second trailer. They are led by Jeff Bridges and feature the likes of Pedro Pascal, Channing Tatum, and Halle Berry. Like the Kingsmen tailors being a front for their spy organization, the Statesmen run a whiskey distillery. Originally it looked like Statesman whiskey was a small organization but we are shown a skyscraper with the Statesman name, so they must be a very large whiskey distributor. Perhaps they make other American goods like whips and cowboy hats.
Speaking of lassos, we get a look at what they can do and it’s awesome. The lasso has been described as the Statesmen’s umbrellas, serving multiple purposes in and out of combat. They can be used to pick up and throw chairs as well as presumably swing over pitfalls. They can also be used as…lightsabres? We get a look at Perdo Pascal’s character using his lasso to cut a man in half. It looks like whenever the lasso’s are activated the turn a glowing blue. They can even be used as skipping rope.
The character left largely out of the trailer is the villainous Poppy. She has been described as a psycotic Martha Stewart and I am really starting to get that vibe. Assuming the South American pyramid hideout is hers, it features a recreated fifties main street with armed guards dressed as bellhops. He have seen shots of Poppy dressed as a waitress in the diner so it looks like this it either some sort of testing facility for her products or she just built it because she it crazy.
Poppy also employs the henchman with the robot arm and this may be a huge reach but he bears a resemblance to the person Eggsy is fighting in the opening car chase. Perhaps he is a minion of Poppy’s who loses his arm in the fight and has it replaced by Poppy before the finale.
Poppy also seems to be working with or for whoever Elton John will be playing in this movie. He has been confirmed to play a key role in the film as we have already gotten a look at some robotic dogs named Benny and Jett but this trailer also featured, in the South American base, a marquee reading “The Bitch is Back”, the name of one of Elton John’s songs.
That is so on the nose, it can only go down one of two ways.
Either
Poppy is a huge Elton John fan. She has kidnapped him and is either using him as part of her evil plan or just has him in a cage for fun.
Or
Elton John is the big bad. And not Elton John playing Mr Kill. Elton John playing an evil version of Elton John. Poppy is working for John and he is the Blofeld of this universe.
Can you imagine and Evil Elton John? Not only AMAZING but what kind of crazy plans and deathtraps would Evil Elton John put together? God save the Kingsmen.
Last we have to touch on Harry, who has plenty of screentime in this trailer. It is clear that this is original Harry. Not a clone or a robot or a twin. (Although considering we have robot arms, drones, and robot dogs, I’m actually not willing to rule out robot.) This appears to be the Harry that Valentine shot outside of the church in…Kentucky. Which just happens to be the location of the Statesmen base. It seems likely that they took Harry in and nursed him back to health.
One last thing of note. The original teaser ended with a shot of Harry shaving in a padded cell. That cell had butterflies drawn on the walls which, and I cannot remember where I heard, are connected to Poppy. Maybe she loves bugs? Or flowers? That would explain the honey drones we see in one of the trailer’s first shots. We will soon find out.
Also the Kingsmen make perfume/cologne now.
Who knows? I’m sure it’s amazing and I want some now.
The henchman with the metal arm is Charlie, former Kingsman candidate from the first movie.