The King's Man

Today, I finished watching “The King’s Man,” which came out in theaters around the holiday time but came out a couple of weeks ago on HBO Max and Hulu. I watched this while exercising, so now I will let everyone know what I thought of this prequel to the “Kingsman” franchise.

Alan Ng started his review by saying, “Let’s tally up the score for a moment. I really liked Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service (based on the Mark Millar graphic novels), but I felt like Kingsman: The Golden Circle was a huge misstep in the wrong direction. So after the disappointing sequel, how does the prequel fair?”

We’re on the height of World War I. Three cousins are the rulers of three European and Eastern mega-powers: King George of England, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Tsar Nicholas of Russia, all played by Tom Hollander. Meanwhile, villains, led by Erik Jan Hanussen, played by Daniel Bruhl, come out from hiding to intrude the confidence of the three leaders and plan out a world war, starting with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Hanussen destroys the trust between cousins with his close relationship with Wilhem, while manipulative monk Grigori Rasputin, played by Rhys Ifans, breaks into the Tsar, while at the same time a secret mole is running in King George’s circle of influence.

Meanwhile, famous pacifist Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) is still mourning the death of his wife (Alexandra Maria Lara) by terrorists and promises to keep his son, Conrad (Harris Dickinson), out of danger. However, Conrad shows great fighting skill and ability in the intelligence area – thanks to Orlando’s servant Polly (Gemma Arterton) and advisor Shola (Djimon Hounsou). So, Orlando brings his son Conrad into the secret intelligence operation, making him an important team member, but this relationship is tense with a lot of father/son issues.

Orlando begins shaping his son to be the best agent starting with the controversial assassination of Rasputin. Ng said, “The plot of The King’s Man is so interwoven with actual historical events that in a later mission, Orlando’s operation needs to coax the United States into entering the war. I love this blurring of lines.” Obviously, this is an origin story, and with every new mission and new lesson learned, we see the slow formation of what The Kingsman will be.

Ng said, “Weirdly, what I like about the film written by Karl Gajdusek and director Matthew Vaughn is what it doesn’t do with the full knowledge that this is a prequel. Many prequels take steps to foreshadow events in the future. Instead, The King’s Man successfully takes the ideas of the intelligence agency’s origin’s in The Secret Service and simply tells the story without needing to overtly connect to the first film in some sappy, eye-winking way.”

Ng continued, “The connection between the prequel and the original is the idea of the spy group itself (which I loved in the original) as a secret organization dedicated to global-political stabilization, the essential elements of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and the suave, sophisticated nature of the organization where “manners maketh the man.”” The other connection made is the comic book violence and over-the-top villains and evil.

Unfortunately, the first half is weak and it’s pretty much making the global plan and passing the torch to Conrad as he joins his father’s underground intelligence group. We’ve seen all of this before, in the first film. “The King’s Man” doesn’t pick up in any really incredible way until the second half, where a fantastic story twist occurs. At the 100-minute mark, this small moment of brilliant, bold, unexpected storytelling comes out of nowhere, forcing the story to move in a courageous direction. Ng admitted, “Honestly, when this happened, I woke up from my boredom and truly cared about what was happening.”

The issue with action currently is that so many films use the same overused CGI excitement that the only way to stand out from all of that is through bold narrative choices. Ng ended his review by saying, “Sadly, I had to wait a long while for The King’s Man to become a good movie. But it does get there eventually.”

As a prequel, this is just alright. I don’t think this is in any way good or better than the previous two, but that would be hard for a prequel to be. Still, I think this is decent enough for people to watch. If you don’t want to see this in theaters, play it safe and watch it on HBO Max or Hulu. That way, if you don’t like it, you can turn it off easily.

Thank you for joining in on tonight’s review. Stay tuned next month to see what I will review next.