The King's Man (2021) Review

 "Reputation is what people think of you.  Character is what you are."

-Duke Orlando Oxford

When an evil organization puts in motion the events that trigger World War I, noted pacifist Duke Orland Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) forms a secret intelligence organization to find a way to end the war.

What Works:

As with the first two Kingsman movies, the action sequences are awesome.  They are well shot, creative, and a lot of fun.  They are definitely the best parts of the film with the highlights being the Rasputin (Rhys Ifans) fight and the knife fight in No Man's Land.

The story of this film has Oxford and his team inserting themselves in several historical events, which is an awesome idea.  We get scenes on a World War I battlefield and encounters with both Archduke Franz Ferdinand (Ron Cook) and Rasputin.  I wish the movie had taken a similar approach to Inglourious Basterds and done a story with an alternate history, but I also liked that a good chunk of those moments were surprisingly historically accurate.

Finally, there is one death scene in the movie that really caught me by surprise.  It's well done, shocking, tragic, and emotional.  It's one of the few times I felt anything other than annoyance while watching this film.

What Sucks:

The big problem with The King's Man is that it feels like two different movies crammed together.  One movie is about a father and son.  The father is a pacifist and the son wants to go to war.  The other movie is a wacky and over-the-top Kingsman prequel.  These two do not fit well together and the focus is actually on the father and son story.  It's tonally awkward.  It almost feels like the filmmakers forgot what made the original movie so fun.

The father and son storyline is very dull most of the time and goes on for way too long.  For the first half of the movie, it's extremely repetitive with Conrad (Harris Dickinson) wanting to go to war and arguing with his father about it.  It takes a very long time for the story to make any progress.

The first act of the movie is a total snooze with almost nothing very interesting happening.  It's all setup and exposition, which could have been condensed down to the opening sequence.

One of the best parts of the original Kingsman is Samuel L. Jackson's performance as the villain.  For the vast majority of this movie, the villain is unseen and hidden in shadow, like Blofeld in the early Bond movies.  By the time he is reveled, he's not all that fun or interesting.  There was no real point in hiding his character.  Just let the actor act and have some evil fun.

Finally, I'm just frustrated by this movie as a whole.  I could have made a better Kingsman prequel in my sleep.  All they had to do was move the father and son storyline and the exposition to just the opening of the movie.  The rest of the time should have been Duke Oxford and his team going on insane missions and showing the audience a good time.  It's really very simple.  These kind of movies drive me insane where I can see a clear solution to all of the problems, but the filmmakers couldn't.  It's maddening and, for me, The King's Man is the most disappointing movie of the year.

Verdict:

While the action is solid and the story has some interesting ideas, the majority of The King's Man falls completely flat with awkward tonal shifts, some boring storylines, bad pacing, and an uninspired villain.  If this is the kind of Kingsman movie we're going to get, I don't want anymore and I hope this bombs at the box office.

 3/10: Really Bad