PLOT: During the Great War, a former soldier turned pacifist (Ralph Fiennes) is forced back into action when the forces of evil threaten to keep the war from ever ending.
REVIEW: The King’s Man is a movie whose very existence seems like a miracle. When 20th Century Fox was still a thing, Matthew Vaughn’s the Kingsman series seemed like the next big franchise for the studio behind Deadpool, Alien, Predator, Die Hard and more. When Disney acquired them, and they became 20th Century Studios, suddenly this once-promising series was left in limbo. After all, Vaughn’s series is unapologetically profane and R-rated. How would it ever fit into the house of mouse?
Indeed, The King’s Man, which is a prequel to the first two Kingsman movies, Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle, was supposed to shoot back to back with a potential sequel that would wrap up the story of Taron Egerton’s Eggsy and Colin Firth’s Harry Hart. Unfortunately, that film seems unlikely to happen now, but at least we have Vaughn’s prequel, The King’s Man, which has sat on the shelf for a while due to the pandemic.
As profane and R-rated as ever, this film examines the history of the Kingsman organization, with it popping up during the First World War under the stewardship of the original “Arthur,” Ralph Fiennes’ Orlando Oxford. A former operative, after being widowed during the Boer War, he’s turned into a die-hard pacifist, raising his son, Harris Dickinson’s Conrad, to help him with his Red Cross work. His former kick-ass colleagues, Djimon Hounsou’s Shola and Gemma Arterton’s Polly, have helped him establish a spy network of agents working as servants, who give the aristocratic Oxford tips so he can help serve Tom Hollander’s King George. But, as the First World War heats up thanks to the machinations of a sinister organization that counts Rhys Ifans’ Rasputin and Valerie Pachner’s Mata Hari as agents, Oxford is forced to break his oath of pacifism to once again fight for his country.
What’s interesting about Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man is how it both follows the formula of the original movies and subverts it. Like the original, it’s led by a posh English actor you’d never really expect to lead an action movie, in this case, Ralph Fiennes, who was probably scared away from the genre for good after 1998’s The Avengers. He starts here as a character not unlike his M from the Daniel Craig James Bond movies, but a lot more emotional, with him a devoted father who only cares about his son’s wellbeing, with King and Country second. Circumstances push him into action, and he, in effect, becomes a James Bond-like figure, fighting it out with baddies, jumping from airplanes, and sword-fighting Rhys Ifans’ evil Rasputin.
However, it also subverts exceptions of the first film, showing that the Kingsman agency was never meant to be as posh and aristocratic as it became, with Fiennes a forward-thinker here who treated his servants as friends and equals, earning their undying loyalty. Harris Dickinson, as Fiennes’ son, gives the film a stronger emotional current than the others did, with the two devoted to each other in a way that’s never really been shown in the franchise yet, even giving the film an unexpectedly emotional and tragic quality in the third act, which also departs from the formula as far as which of the lead characters takes center stage.
Overall, The King’s Man is so much fun you hope that, against all odds, the film is enough of a success to continue the franchise. It’s far superior to the overstuffed The Golden Circle, hewing closer to the original movie and containing a little less of the laddish humour that put off some of the audience originally, making this a deeper, more emotional spy yarn.
Fiennes is an inspired choice to play the lead, with him as unlikely an action star as one can imagine. But, like what happened with Bob Odenkirk in Nobody, watching this middle-aged character actor become a total badass gives the movie a charge it wouldn’t have had otherwise, and Fiennes is terrific in such an atypical part. Dickinson also shines as his well-intentioned son, who yarns for battlefield glory despite his father’s attempts to protect him. Gemma Arterton turns action heroine as Conrad’s nanny, whose love for Oxford Sr is unrequited. Rhys Ifans chews the scenery here as the villainous Rasputin, who’s reimagined as a supervillain, but the guy who totally steals the show here is Djimon Hounsou. He’s Oxford’s loyal bodyguard, and has the movie’s most memorable action sequence as he goes mano-a-mano with Ifans as the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky fills the soundtrack. Like Fiennes, he’s never really been an action star, but watching him here, you wonder why he never really got those kinds of roles before as he kicks a whole lot of ass.
The supporting cast is jam-packed as usual for a Vaughn film, with Tom Hollander playing three roles, as the cousins King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas, who hold the fate of Europe in their hands. Charles Dance also shows up as Fiennes’ mentor, Lord Kitchener, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson has a cameo that, I assume, is meant to pay off in future installments, if they happen. The score by Matthew Margeson and Dominic Lewis is excellent, probably the best in the franchise so far, benefitting that thanks to the period setting, there are not as many needle drops.
Indeed, while this a definitely a fun romp, The King’s Man is a bit more of a serious spy-romp than its predecessors, with a strongly emotional turn by Fiennes in the lead and a more focused plot than Golden Circle. It’s a lot of fun, and hopefully, people support it theatrically.