The King’s Man

Plot

In the early 1900’s – Orlando Oxford is the Duke of Oxford, and is on good terms with some of the most important people in history. After Franz Ferdinand is assassinated, Oxford finds himself in the middle of a mysterious antagonists plan to start WWI.

He brings son Conrad into the mix of a secret organisation he has created – and together they attempt to stop the incoming war – which Conrad is so desperate to join – he steals the identity of another soldier.

Direction

Once again, directed by Vaughn in this third entry into the franchise (although this is an origin story of how Kingsman came to be).

There are some great sequences such as the plane crash in the third act, plus the fight sequence at end. This film definitely feels the most violent, and once again there are some ‘creative’ choices made in the fate of some characters.

Some of the action is a little hard to take seriously due to era, especially when cars are trying to speed away from action.

The war time action is some of the best sequences in the film, especially the night time fight sequence in which both sides are fighting in silence not to be gunned down by either side.

Cast/Characters

A pretty stacked cast, with Ralph Fiennes in the lead as Orlando. He is good, but he doesn’t really have the same screen presence or charisma that Colin Firth had.

Secondary characters like Conrad, Polly and Shola are likeable enough, but don’t have the same emotional impact that previous film characters had.

The revelation of the antagonist’s identity at the climax of the film was a little on the nose, especially when the character was only in a small handful of scenes.

Special mention to Tom Hollander, who plays Tsar Nicholas, King George and Kaiser Wilhelm. He is even billed Tom Hollander³ in the credits.

Screenplay/Setting/Themes

There is obviously a mixture of fiction and nonfiction – with Orlando and his team the only characters created directly for the screen – the remainder are mostly based on real life people.

I thought it was a bit out of place that there are German speaking actors, playing top German characters – but all speak English.

I felt there was a little too much reliance on the ‘f’ word – much like the first two films.

Score/Soundtrack

A fairly cinematic score at moments, especially at Franz Ferdinand’s assassination and Rasputin’s entrance

Overall

Despite its best effort, this struggles to keep up with the stamina of the previous two films. I liked this, but didn’t love it.

3/5