A Spy Thriller Without the Thrill
MOVIE REVIEW
The King's Man
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Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Year Released: 2021
Runtime: 2h 11m
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Writer(s): Matthew Vaughn, Karl Gajdusek
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Djimon Hounsou
Where To Watch: Now streaming on HBO Max & Hulu
2014’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service” was arguably one of my favorite films of the year. It was new, it was fun, the action scenes were exciting and original and the cast was perfectly suited for their roles. Taron Egerton played the ideal role going from “the dark side to the light” but the rest of the cast was just as strong and worked together to create something “original” from a genre that was somewhat stagnant. In 2017 “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” was released and was a pretty big step backward for me, the new additions to the cast felt out of place and the storyline was more than a little forced for me. Thankfully there was still enough magic that made it feel like home.
That leads us to “The King’s Man” the third film in the series but a prequel to it all, the start of the story that I fell for in the beginning. Unfortunately, it was an even bigger step backward for me. One of my favorite parts of the James Bond films as well as the first two films in this series was the play on technology. It took the crazy cool physical scenes and brought it up a notch. While there were still a lot of opportunities for this one to follow in the lines of previous “old-time” films that made old tech look cool, they didn’t take advantage of it the way they could’ve.
Overall it wasn’t bad, and I know I’ll get some flack for this but just like Rotten Tomatoes, I consider a 2.5-star review as okay but not great. Many disagree with me and that’s okay but I like to go strictly by the math. A half star is a terrible film, a five star is an amazing film, and 2.5 is right in the middle. As you’ve heard from me multiple times before, my favorite part of film is that two people can watch the same film and have two entirely different experiences.
I will say that I’m excited for the future of the franchise, with another film in the works as well as a limited TV series, I feel like they’ll get back to what made it so fun in the beginning. At least I hope that's where we’ll end up!
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Completely agree didn’t think it was a too bad of a movie excited to see what comes next
I definitely think the next chapter will make or break the franchise.
To be honest, I haven’t seen any of the other Kingsman movies. Until my friend had me come see this, and I’m glad that he talked me into it because after this I went and watch the other movies.
I was a big fan of the other movie but just didnt do it for me. It was okay but nothing to write home about and nothing Id revisit any time soon which is a shame