Return of the ‘Kings’
Spy romp? Tasteless waste of space? War drama? Amusing diversion? The long-delayed ‘King’s Man’ is confusingly all of the above.
the king’s man
Director: Matthew Vaughn • Writers: Matthew Vaughn, Karl Gajdusek, based on the comic by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Harris Dickinson, Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Charles Dance, Daniel Brühl, Tom Hollander
UK • 2hrs 11mins
Opens Hong Kong Dec 30 • IIB
Grade: B-
Matthew Vaughn has always been a bit of a lad. For every clever gag or cool action sequence in his films, he’s thrown in a least one groaner of a juvenile joke that face palm emoji seems to have been custom designed for. His earliest solo work, after he got everyone’s attention as Guy Ritchie’s producer on Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch (Swept Away does. Not. Exist.), that being Layer Cake, was slick and tight, but a whiff of that that boys-being-boys thing was distinct. Then came Kick-Ass, which wasn’t even trying to hide its juvenilia, and then an X-Men detour.
In 2015 Vaughn got around to Kingsman: The Secret Service. That was amusing, a bit subversive, aggressively stylish. It was also old-fashioned in a retrograde way that everyone happily ignored in light of its goofy fun. The Big Bad was an environmentalist (!), a bunch of liberals’ heads exploded at a fancy dinner (!!), and the film ended on a universally derided anal sex joke (!!!) that, dude. C’mon. Just because Colin Firth’s Harry Hart wiped out a hateful right-wing church it didn’t make the film any less conservative itself. Just as baffling was Vaughn’s willingness to double down on the same tasteless joke two years later in Kingsman: The Golden Circle. It’s really hard to wrap your head around anyone’s obsession with female nether-parts outside of porn. The King’s Man, the third entry in the franchise, pivots away from the earlier reactionary, gently misogynist vibe into affirming, post-Brexit “British exceptionalism,” with a tiny mea culpa to the Scots. Progress?
We know how likely this collaboration is in pre-WWI Europe but hey, it’s fantasy
This is the requisite franchise origin story: After losing his wife during the Boer War thanks to Lord Kitchener’s (Tywin Lannister himself, Charles Dance) scorched earth policy in South Africa, Orlando, Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) vows to protect his son Conrad (Harris Dickinson) from the evils of warfare forever. But when political shenanigans and a deep conspiracy lead to another war and Conrad wants to fight for King and Country, Orlando uses his friendship with King George V (Tom Hollander) to keep him off the battlefield. Later, he returns to the spy game and The King’s Man espionage agency is born.
The King’s Man is another moderately entertaining diversion, helped along by a vivid pre-First World War backdrop — it’s not an alternate history, so it’s also kind of egregious — and a handful of engaging performances. Like most movies these days, it’s too long. Seriously, when did editors go on strike? And there’s a good deal of fat on the edges that could be trimmed, primarily the long, windy sequences with our mysterious (totally not mysterious) Big Bad rambling on about his master plan with his gang of accomplices. Yeah, dude, we get it. Moving on.
The biggest stumbling block to any level of consistent entertainment value is an extended stretch near the middle that transforms the film into 1917 — a deadly serious detour into No Man’s Land and a bit of deadly serious history that was among the ugliest moments in human history. To say the passage is a jarring tonal shift is like saying COVID sucks, it’s so obvious. WTF? Why is this here? Who thought this bit fit nicely in with a goofy spy spoof romp? You really have to have a masterful command of language and imagery to effectively use the First World War as a plot device in a Kingsman movie. Vaughn’s not quite there. Neither is co-writer Karl Gajdusek, writer of nasty hot messes Trespass and The Last Days of American Crime. Shudder.
Don’t fight it. Just crack out the Boney M
But it turns out Fiennes is a decent action hero and a strong Elder Gentleman substitute for Firth, balancing his Duke and proto-Bond personae perfectly. Of course he can. He’s Ralph Fiennes. The film works because Fiennes is surrounded by game and/or ridiculous supporting players too. Djimon Hounsou gives the film its sensitive brute sex appeal (because, Black) as Orlando’s down-low fellow agent Shola, and Rhys Ifans camps it up as the Mad Monk Grigori Rasputin, whose rumoured involvement in stoking the Russian Revolution Vaughn and Co lean into. And before you ask, no. Boney M. does not make an appearance on the soundtrack. Must be a sign that Vaughn is maturing.
Rounding out the cast is Hollander in a gleeful three-way performance as King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas (who were indeed cousins). Kudos to the make-up department for touching up Hollander as so cleverly it does take a second to clock that it’s the same actor. He has fun with the roles, in particular by making the Kaiser a petulant baby who treats the European continent like a personal game board. Oh, and Gemma Arterton is in this. She plays a girl. Who can shoot a rifle. That’s about the extent of the consideration her character gets. I said Vaughn was maturing. It’s a WIP. DEK
Sam Mendes’ Oscar-nominated 1917 The jarringly serious part of the movie