The King's Man - Interesting Prequel of the Kingsman Franchise

It was one of those days where two major new Hollywood movies were released on the same day. Add to that one interesting Indonesian movie that was shown on the following day, made this week a nice time for movie lovers. My wife and I planned to see two movies during the weekend, so we decided to see one of those 3 films in the weekday. Ultimately we chose this one that played in the theater very near our home. OK, let's get to the details now.

Brief Story Line

Set before the World War I period, Duke Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes - No Time to Die, The Lego Batman Movie etc) was a pacifist who was trying to protect his only son Conrad (Harris Dickinson - Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Beach Rats etc) from going to war. Conrad was taken care from childhood by his nanny Polly (Gemma Arterton - The Girl with All the Gifts, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time etc) and Orlando's trusted confidante Shola (Djimon Hounsou - Shazam!, Captain Marvel etc).

When the war finally erupted, Orlando did whatever he could to stop it through various ways behind the scene. He managed to find out that there was a group of people led by the Shepherd who were influencing the war such as Rasputin (Rhys Ifans - Official Secrets, Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows part 1 etc) in Russia and Hanussen (Daniel Brühl - Captain America: Civil War, The Alienist TV series etc) in Germany. Meanwhile Conrad still trying to convince his father and General Kitchener (Charles Dance - Godzilla II: King of Monsters etc) with Captain Morton (Matthew Goode - Chasing Liberty, Downton Abbey etc) that he was ready to fight for the country.

So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

As you might have known or guessed, this movie was a spinoff from the Kingsman franchise which started with Kingsman: The Secret Service and continued with Kingsman: The Golden Circle. What surprised us though was this one which was set to be a prequel was released before the 3rd movie. Anyway, my wife found out for me that the 3rd film would indeed start in 2022, so perhaps it would have a 2023 release.

Since this is a prequel and set in the early 20th century, obviously we have brand new cast. This time the lead character was Ralph Fiennes who provided a strong and convincing performance as a pacifist, loving father and surprisingly agile in fighting. Unlike the other Kingsman's movies, this film felt different as it focused a lot on the unique take on what happened during the World War I which involved many parties. This resulted to the film having a rather slow pace especially in the first half with some characters development and a bit of history lesson (albeit altered for entertainment purpose).

The film to me became really "alive" in the middle when Rasputin was given more screen time. And from that moment on, I thought it was more exciting and it even had some dramatic shocking moment which quite blew my mind. It was totally surprising, although my wife was brilliant as she had already a feeling about it. There were a lot more fights which culminated to a very strong and satisfying finale fight scene that was pretty spectacular. 

One thing that confused me though was that in the previous Kingsman's movies, a lot of the actions were over the top and felt a bit cartoonish, but I did not feel that in here. In fact it felt like the standard action movie and did not have strong comic book feel either (Kingsman series were based on comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons). The weird thing was because all the 3 movies were directed by Matthew Vaughn so I thought that it would have similar style. Btw Vaughn had some prior experience in making successful action movies such as Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class. 

I mentioned above that Ralph Fiennes (who is one of my wife's favorite actor) provided strong performance, whereas the others were generally fine. The story was a bit more complicated compared to the previous movies and there was very little romance. The tone was a bit serious, though there was a bit of humor as the film progressed. The sound effect was surprisingly good with a Dolby Surround 7.1 effect (I can only imagine how it would be if it was Dolby Atmos). Oh there was a mid end credit scene in here which seemed to hint for a sequel, likely with the idea of having a new trilogy.

Overall this might not have been the best movie in the Kingsman franchise but it was adequate to give context on how the secret service was created. My wife and I personally prefer the first movie as it gave more excitement with more engaging main characters and less complex. I like the action and suspense in here even though it was not as stylish as the earlier movies However, I would have liked this film even better had it shortened the earlier part to make it more exciting and probably lessen the duration a bit (131 minutes). So if you like the Kingsman's movies, then you might find this to be a bit too different not only with new cast but also in term of action and story telling. But if you are like me and my wife who are suckers for intense and cool action movie, then you might enjoy this too. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars