Movie Review: The King's Man

 

Michael's Movie Grade: C

An okay entry in the Kingsmen franchise. 

The best parts about this movie are the characters and the action scenes. Our main heroes are undeniably likable and easy to root for. While they are not the most complex characters, there is a certain charm to them that makes us want to see them be victors and for nothing to happen to them. Because of this we gain a bit of an emotional connection to them and therefore when a certain scene towards the middle of the film happens, it is surprisingly emotionally effective. While I doubt many are going to cry watching this, this scene works much better than it has any right to and provides a real emotional center for the rest of the film. Just as much as the good guys are likable, the bad guys are easy to hate. While many movies today try to have you sympathize and understand their villains, there is something so many of us (including me) love about a real baddy with no redeeming qualities. There is a pure simple charm to watch our movie heroes fight against pure evil and I really enjoyed seeing that here. The action scenes are very well handled. They have great pacing and are beautifully choregraphed most of all they were just fun to watch. 



However, this movie has more than its share of flaws. By far the worst part of this movie were the scenes with Rasputin. These scenes were horrible, and I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few people who see this in a theater decide to leave during these scenes. The presentation of this character is too over the top and silly for even a Kingsmen film. It feels like these scenes belong in a very different movie (one that would be horrible I'm sure). Not to be a prude, but these scenes were also ridiculously vulgar. While yes when I see an R rated movie I except a certain amount of crudeness there, there seemed to be no reason for the vulgarness here. It wasn't funny, it wasn't clever, and it added nothing to the story. It just seemed to be there for a sense of gratuitousness, and it passed the line from being crude to just being gross and unpleasant. This is especially unnecessary once you consider that with all the over-the-top violence and cussing that the movie would have still had a hard R rating even without these scenes. The worst part of these scenes is that if you cut them out of the film, it would still have worked just as well. Which leads us to the next problem with this movie. It is much longer than it needs to be and can often feel padded and does drag at points. The humor is also hit and miss but it misses more than it hits. For a film with so many jokes, I heard surprisingly little laughter seeing this in a theater with an audience. There is also the problem that is seen in most prequels, which is that due to the existence of the other movies, you know what is going to happen next at many spots. 

This is far from a great film but if you just want to take a trip to the movies this should provide you with enough entertainment to satisfy you.