Going into The King’s Man, the last thing I expected was for it to have quite so much in common with one of the biggest films of the year, Spider-Man: No Way Home. Both films are the third entry in their respective franchises, with the latest entry in Matthew Vaughan’s English super spy series acting as a prequel. Both films elicit fantastically enjoyable performances from the older gentlemen in their star studded casts, and the marketing for both films expertly divert our expectations, with the final product delivering tons of surprises.
While the previous two Kingsman movies were based on Mark Millar and Dave Gibbon’s The Secret Service comic, you won’t find Taron Egerton’s Eggsy or Colin Firth’s Harry Hart here. A prequel to the other two movies, The King’s Man chronicles the events leading up to the creation of the Kingsman independent intelligence/spy agency, and is one of those films that it’s better to know as little as possible about before going in.
Elements of the franchise familiar to audiences make their appearance, but Vaughan and screenwriter Karl Gajdusek have taken the basic premise of exploring what events might push Ralph Fiennes’ aristocratic humanitarian Duke Orlando Oxford, and his son Conrad Oxford (Harris Dickinson), to set up the Kingman agency in the first place, and spun it into an ambitious, World War I era, period-adventure movie.
At numerous points I was staggered by the audacity of scale of this “self funded movie.” It’s a whistle stop tour from the desert plains of the Boer War, to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to Tsarist Russia, to the trenches of World War I. The King’s Man never feels anything less than epic.
Manners Maketh the Men (and Women)
The cavalcade of talent Vaughan has assembled, including Charles Dance, Tom Hollander, Rhys Ifans, Tom Hollander, Daniel Brühl, Tom Hollander, Stanley Tucci, and Matthew Goode, portray the leading political figures of the time, and never fail to delight as each appears on screen (with a few obviously lined up for roles in any sequels).
Without giving too much away, the plot sees Oxford racing around Europe using his influence and wealth to try and prevent war from breaking out, as well as stopping his son from getting involved in one. Meanwhile a shadowy cabal manipulates events to destabilize Europe, Russia, and the USA. Along with their manservant Shola (Djimon Hounsou) and Nanny/head of intelligence Polly (Gemma Arterton), the team barrel around Europe, building a network of unexpected spies, and putting out fire after fire before they engulf “dear old England” and her allies.
Considering how “old” Ralph Fiennes portrayed M in the recent No Time To Die, like Willem Dafoe in Spiderman: No Way Home, he is utterly convincing as an action star here. Only after leaving the cinema was I asking: “wait, how did they do that?” Every opportunity to sideline Fiennes in action scenes, in favour of the younger members of the cast, is disregarded as Vaughan’s signature frenetic action style from Kick-Ass, and the previous Kingsman movies, carries you through this one. (I‘ve just realised that I consider Djimon Hounsou as one of those “younger” cast mates and he’s only a year younger than Fiennes!).
To End All Wars
An action scene with an unrecognizable Rhys Ifans as Rasputin is a standout. There is, however, one downside to Vaughan’s style, and it is that he seems to apply the same brush to plotting as well. The King’s Man rattles along at a breakneck pace, and for some time, it feels like the film will never settle down into a groove. Thankfully, around the half way mark, it eventually does, and delivers an appropriately sombre take on WWI trench warfare.
It’s a minor complaint that’s rendered insignificant once the plot reaches certain elements that have, so far, been kept out of the marketing material.
There aren’t really any big twists per se, Vaughan just has a different idea of where he wants to go with the plot than you might first expect.
With excellent, fun performances all round (in fact, Hounsou only seems to chose “fun” roles these days), The King’s Man successfully opens up a second front for the previously present-day bound Kingsman franchise. The time period and inclusion of so many historical figures (and guest stars) in prominent roles, gives the film a different flavour to the main series and will provide plenty of material for further adventures of the early 20th Century version of the Kingsmen once Eggsy’s story concludes in Kingsman 3.
The King’s Man is a decidedly odd egg amongst its cinema classmates of 2021, which was a year full of contemporary action films and superhero/fantasy themed movies. That dissimilarity marks the old fashioned The King’s Man as a decidedly fresh and enjoyable way to end the cinema release schedule for the year.
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