Matthew Vaughn is back for the third installment of his awesome Kingsman series with, The King’s Man. The King’s Man is a prequel that aims to show us how this organization came to be and build the world of this franchise a bit more too. It is a rather interesting movie and I have to say I am not sure a prequel is what people expected from a third movie in the franchise.
How to Stream or Download The King’s Man
The King’s Man should be available online in February 2022. It should come to the Hulu and the HBO Max platforms. Another place where You will be able to stream or download the film is Disney+.
The Movie Review
The movie takes place during the days of World War 1. Ralph Fiennes is fantastic as The Duke of Oxford, who after a horrific event, became a pacifist and he decided that an agency was required to stop terrible wars and attacks from happening. He plays the role with real conviction but has a bit of humor about him too.
Of course, this is the early days of The Kingsman organization and he recruits two people he knows very well. We have Djimon Hounsou as Shola and Gemma Arterton as Polly and these are basically the first two recruits. The casting here is fantastic, Polly and her pottymouth was a major highlight of the movie for me.
Adding to the drama is the Duke’s son who wants to fight, but the Duke is against this. We have a very interesting villain in Rasputin. Rasputin is played by Rhys Ifans and right from the first scene he is in, you can tell he was having a great time. The King’s Man clocks in at around two hours and I have to say it does drag in places.
This is not a horrible movie, but the whole war is bad, peace is good angle feels tacked on and a huge part of why the runtime is what it is. The movie is at its best when there is a lot of action going on. The action here is just fantastic and it has some of the best action scenes of any movie released in the last year.
I think had they gone all-in on just the action, The King’s Man would have been a much better movie for it. The cast is great, especially Shola and Polly and I would be all for a movie with just the two of them, to be honest with you. The whole cast clearly is trying their best here, but the overall plot is just not that great which is a real bummer to say.
The first two Kingsman movies were fantastic and I think this is slightly more of a step back than even a side step. The idea of seeing the early days of this organization is great, but the execution just did not work all that well for me. As I said, as an action movie this is great, but it is the other stuff that drags it down.
This is a real shame as there is a lot of potential here. I think with a bit more of the war stuff cut, this would have been a faster-paced and more fun movie. If you liked the other two Kingsman movies, it is certainly worth a watch. However, by the end, I was left wishing we just got a straight-up sequel to Kingsman: The Golden Circle instead.
