Film Review - The King's Man (2022)

 The King’s Man is directed by Matthew Vaughn and this is the third Kingsman film after 2015’s The Secret Service and 2017’s The Golden Circle and this time we’re back in the time of World War 1 and Ralph Fiennes is the lead here as the Duke of Oxford instead of Colin Firth who is tasked with stopping the Great War as well as saving England from a German onslaught but to do that he will have to deal with the notorious Russian monk Rasputin (Rhys Ifans.)

 

I am probably one of the very few people on this planet who has been looking forward to this long delayed film, first delayed due to the swallowing of 20^th Century Fox by Walt Disney Studios (RIP Fox I still love you) and then delayed again and again due to the pandemic but finally it has come out and I got to see it.

 

And I was not disappointed as this prequel was well worth the wait and I feel that this is as good a Kingsman movie than the first movie and firstly the reason for this is the shift back in time, the first Kingsman felt like a modern day version of a Sean Connery James Bond film while the second felt more like a Roger Moore era Bond film and it got very silly indeed and I felt that in order for the Kingsman series to continue with another film it needed to strip a lot of the silliness right down and take on more of the Timothy Dalton style of Bond.

 

And it feels like Vaughn has taken the criticisms of the second film to heart a lot more than he did the criticisms of the ending of the first film which I felt led to the unnecessary princess sideplot in the Golden Circle here while the action scenes have that Kingsman style there’s no magic remedy this time around when people die they die and this more serious feel is most welcome for me.

 

Another reason is that I loved how this film plays with the history of the time period regarding World War 1, the Russian Revolution and how the senselessness of the Great War as it was known then led to the founding of the Kingsman in a similar way that Colin Firth tells Eggsy about in the fitting room in the first movie and seeing that tailor shop again made me smile big time in the cinema after all Manners Maketh Man as well as a finely tailored suit.

 

Also the film has some great action scenes that actually feel properly edited be it a fight with Rasputin or the big climax on top of a mountain or one big War scene in particular that feels like a scene from Sam Mendes’s 1917 which this movie actually predated in terms of its production and this playing around with history definitely feels inspired from Vaughn’s experience on X-Men First Class 10 years ago where he and Bryan Singer played around with history in regards to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

 

Lastly the film has a lot of great performances, Ralph Fiennes is a worthy replacement for Colin Firth and its great to see him in a proper action role, Djimon Hounsou and Gemma Arterton are also very memorable in their roles as are Charles Dance, Daniel Bruhl and Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson is also very good as the Duke’s son while Rhys Ifans totally steals the show as Rasputin and the film really comes to life when he’s on screen.

 

And so that was the King’s Man and I really enjoyed it, this is as good a Kingsman film as the first one was and I’m keen to watch it again, 4 out of 5.