THE KING'S MAN : Tuesday 11th January 2022.

I saw 'THE KING'S MAN' at my local multiplex this week and this MA15+ Rated spy action film is Directed, written for the screen, based on a story and Co-Produced by Matthew Vaughn, and is based on the 2012 comic book series created by Mark Miller and Dave Gibbons known as 'The Secret Service'. This film serves as a prequel to 2014's 'The Kingsman : The Secret Service' and 2017's 'Kingsman : The Golden Circle' both Directed also by Matthew Vaughn which between them grossed US$826M off the back of combined production budgets of US$195M. This film was released on 22nd December in the US, on 26th December 2021 in the UK and was last week released in Australia having been delayed several times from an original November 2019 release date, partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film received mixed reviews from critics, grossing US$75M so far. 

At the turn of the 20th Century Orlando, the Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes), his wife Emily (Alexandra Maria Lara) and young son Conrad (Alexander Shaw) visit a concentration camp in South Africa during the Boer War while working for the Red Cross. Emily is killed during a Boer sniper attack on the camp, causing pacifist Orlando to determine that the world needs someone to head off such conflicts before they arise. Fast forward twelve years, and Orlando has recruited two of his servants, Shola (Djimon Hounsou) and Polly (Gemma Arterton), into his spy network dedicated to protecting the United Kingdom and the British Empire from the imminent Great War. Conrad (Harris Dickinson) is eager to fight on the front line but is forbidden to join up by his protective father, who persuades his close friend Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War (Charles Dance), not to let him join the army. 

Upon the express wishes of Lord Kitchener, Conrad and Orlando ride with Orlando's friend Archduke Franz Ferdinand (Ron Cook) through Sarajevo, and Conrad saves the Archduke from a bomb thrown by Gavrilo Princip (Joel Basman), a rebel intent on sparking a war. Later, Princip runs into the Archduke's entourage again, this time succeeding in fatally shooting Ferdinand and his wife Sophia. Orlando's group learn that Princip was part of a plot to pit the German, Russian, and British empires against each other. The group, headed by the mysterious Shepherd from a secret mountain-top headquarters, have their own network of agents, including the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin (Rhys Ifans), a trusted adviser to Tsar Nicholas (Tom Hollander) of Russia. Rasputin, working under the direction of the Shepherd, manipulates Tsar Nicholas by poisoning his young son, and only curing him when the Tsar agrees to leave the war. 

Conrad is notified of Rasputin's manipulation by his cousin Felix Yusupov (Aaron Vodovoz). Knowing the Western Front will be left vulnerable if Russia exits the war, Conrad delivers this information to Kitchener and his personal assistant Major Morton (Matthew Goode), who embark for Russia on a steam ship. Their ship is torpedoed by a submarine, which is split in two and sinks rapidly in a ball of flame apparently killing them both. Word of Kitchener's death reaches Orlando, spurring him to head to Russia with Shola, Polly, and Conrad to put an end to Rasputin once and for all. At a Christmas party hosted by Prince Yusupov, Orlando, Shola, Conrad, and Rasputin get into a fight with the skirmish only ending when Polly shoots Rasputin between the eyes and kills him.

Again, at the Shepherd's insistence, Erik Jan Hanussen (Daniel Bruhl), an adviser to Kaiser Wilhelm II (Tom Hollander), sends a secret diplomatic communication that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico, hoping to sidetrack Britain and the USA. Although the message is intercepted by British intelligence and given to the United States, President Woodrow Wilson (Ian Kelly) refuses to join the war without absolute proof. The Shepherd recruits Vladimir Lenin (August Diehl) and orders his Bolsheviks to overthrow the Tsar and remove Russia from the war, and sending an assassin to kill off the Romanovs.

Now nineteen years of age, Conrad is free to join the war effort without intervention from his father. He is commissioned into the Grenadier Guards against his father's wishes. Orlando meets with King George V (Tom Hollander) who agrees to give his son an administrative pen pushing desk job and thus summons Conrad back to Britain. Conrad sends back a young soldier in his place named Lance Corporal Archie Reid (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), giving him the codename 'Lancelot' to send a message to his father. Disguised as Archie, a member of the Black Watch, Royal Regiment of Scotland, Conrad volunteers for a mission into No-Man's Land to retrieve information from a British agent wounded there, but is mistaken for a German spy upon his return and executed at point blank range with a bullet to the head. However, the information he retrieved from the spy is the proof President Wilson required to enter the war. Orlando is devastated by the news of his sons death, and crawls inside a bottle of Scotch to drown his sorrows, refuses to eat, shave, and leave the house for weeks on end. It takes King George to visit Orlando and present him with a Victoria Cross medal awarded posthumously to Conrad for gallantry and valour and Polly to finally make him come to his senses, after she resigns from his service, which he ultimately refuses to accept. 

Orlando's group learns that President Wilson is being blackmailed with a film of him being seduced by one of the Shepherd's agents, Mata Hari (Valerie Pachner). Orlando locates her at the American Embassy and after overpowering her recovers her cashmere scarf, made from rare wool only found in one specific mountainous region. Having identified this location as the Shepherd's base of operations, Orlando, Shola, and Polly head there and fight their way inside. Morton, who had faked his own death and sunk the battleship, is revealed to be the Shepherd (Matthew Goode). Orlando and Shola fight and kill the Shepherd while Polly recovers the original film negative of Wilson's seduction and returns it to the American President, who promptly burns it on the open fireplace in the Oval Office, so allowing his country's forces to mobilise, and ultimately bring an end to the Great War.

Fast forward twelve months after the end of the war, and Orlando has purchased the Kingsman Tailor Shop as a front for his organisation. Gathered around the table as Orlando announces the formation of the original Kingsman are Polly (codenamed Galahad), King George (Percival), Archie Reid (Lancelot), and US Ambassador Chester King (Stanley Tucci as Bedivere) as Shola enters the room late and is given the codename Merlin, with Orlando taking the name of Arthur - all from the legend of King Arthur in honour of Conrad. Remain in your seat for a mid-credits sequence in which Hanussen has assumed the mantle of the Shepherd and in talks with Lenin introduces him to the Romanovs assassin - one young Adolf Hitler (David Kross).

Like Quentin Tarantino's movie 'Inglorious Basterds' did with reimagining the outcome of WWII, here Matthew Vaughn reimagines the outcome of WWI and does so with a comic book style that helps keep the narrative fresh and at times surprising. The action set pieces, of which there are plenty, are well handled but offer up nothing new that we haven't seen a hundred times before, but which are nonetheless likely to satisfy fans of the first two films in the series. Whilst there are some moments of humour in this film, the storyline here offers up more emotion, and greater sincerity than its predecessors which helps in keeping the wild running plot grounded and relatable . . . just! Ralph Fiennes is dependable as ever in his role as the main protagonist here and playing largely against type just as Colin Firth did in the first two instalments, and proving just how adept he is at close quarter hand to hand combat, and maintaining that stiff British upper lip whilst dressed in the best threads of the era. The remaining ensemble cast all deliver too, especially Rhys Ifans in his over the top camp performance as Rasputin, who ultimately gets his comeuppance that isn't too far removed from the truth it seems. All up, 'The King's Man' is an enjoyable enough romp through an alternate WWI history, is an acceptable origin story, has some standout performances but fails to deliver on what made 'Kingsman : The Secret Service' so memorable and fresh, and is only just a notch or two above 'Kingsman : The Golden Circle'. 

'The King's Man' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-