The King's Man

This review may contain spoilers!

 

The King's Man is a prequel to the first two Kingsman films and details the origin or the Kingsman Agency at the outbreak of the First World War. I found that the film served itself best when it focussed on the relationship between father and son; seeing how Orlando and Conrad complemented one another. There was a lot of love between these two but also a stubborn conflict around Conrad's desire to join the war effort in service of his country. I think this lead to a great theme around there being a flaw in the mentality that it is patriotic to engage in war and die on behalf of one's country. The film also spins the other way and shows the immeasurable grief families had to suffer at losing their children to war, seeing fathers and mothers outlive their sons in such an unthinkable way. They are very carefully considered and well used themes for the film. I loved the final act and seeing Orlando seek out justice for his son and right the wrongs conducted to ignite war in the first place, this was a Kingsman that engaged with some surprising plot elements that certainly made me think of the original film at times. The cinematography was extremely good, action sequences are blended with a variety of really creative shots and angles to keep the style fresh. The special effects look decent, particularly the bi-plane sequence and the destruction of Kitchener's ship. The score for the film was a thrill, blending a number of classical sound with the upbeat tempo of a modern blockbuster.

 

Ralph Fiennes, who played Orlando Oxford, is a protagonist on the same level as Colin Firth; I loved seeing Fiennes as this stubborn moral figure who was propelled into action as an act of love. Charles Dance, who played Kitchener, works as a natural military leader and tactician; he pairs well with Fiennes as a mentor figure and posits advice well. Gemma Arterton, who played Polly, is an extremely passionate character with the energy to match; I enjoyed seeing Arterton as the backbone of her team and she fits into the action nicely. 

However, the best performance came from Rhys Ifans, who played Grigori Rasputin. This role was always fated to be one of the more bonkers characters but in Ifans hands Rasputin was actually the stand out antagonist for the feature. This was a character with a deep ego, he was very grandiose and self-assured; chiefly because he could back his words up with action. We see Ifans' Rasputin as very ill-tempered, insubordinate to his master, a man of appetite and excessively lustful towards men and women. There is this real hunger to the role, he is used to having what he desires and covets control like a predator. The scene in which we see him heal Fiennes' leg is a nice blend of the dark comedy Ifans brings to the role while also illustrating how menacing a figure Rasputin actually is. I was stunned by the fight choreography in that scene, the way in which we see Ifans move akin to a dancer is brilliant and marks him as one of the more significant entries in the Kingsman universe.

The film really grapples to tie the story down as being this historically set epic, in which the entire First World War is ignited by a vindictive Scotsman. There's something very simplistic in how history is examined and held up as the building blocks for the main stage of our action. Seeing all of these historical figures placed as little more than caricatures of themselves feels like quite a lowbrow move, particularly in the case of King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas. I also think the film took significant moments like the war and acts taken within the war far too lightly, often mischaracterising real figures or events for the sake of it's own narrative. This got to a point where even though the message it attempted to convey felt genuine the actual narrative lost this quality. In fact the entire antagonist reveal was quite predictable and I felt that making him little more than a disgruntled Scotsman took away from the scope of the feature. The feature really grapples with how to potray the more homoerotic aspects of Rasputin, which muddies their best character at times. I also felt that for the majority of the feature The King's Man loses the thing that makes these particular films so good: the humour. The scenes of comedy here are extremely sparse in the first and second acts, making this a feature that differs heavily in tone from previous Kingsman films.

Djimon Hounsou, who played Shola, comes across as a bit of a sidekick figure to Fiennes; he deals in very little dialogue and is mainly in this film to have another fighter in action sequences. Matthew Goode, who played Morton, is a figure I went very back and forth upon; as the traitor in the film he plays to the twist quite obviously and his Scottish antagonist gets pretty absurd in the final confrontation. Harris Dickinson, who played Conrad Oxford, is certainly not here to be the next Eggsy; Dickinson plays a very straight-edged character brimming to fight as a soldier for his country which gets quite two-dimensional after a while. Daniel Brühl, who played Erik Jan Hanussen, is wasted as a lackey to the main antagonist in this feature; when he isn't grovelling in his meagre screen time Brühl is really just here to tease a potential sequel. Tom Hollander, who played King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas, is an acting gimmick that doesn't really pan out; the gag of one actor playing all these world leaders is funny in the first scene but loses out ultimately by demonstrating a fairly limited range. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Archie Reid, is another decent actor sufficiently squandered by this film; Taylor-Johnson is treated more like a prop piece than an actual character by the film.

A huge step up from The Golden Circle but a far cry from the original Kingsman film. I would give The King's Man a 6/10.