The King's Man

Year 14, Day 135 - 5/15/22 - Movie #4,138

BEFORE: Time for a COVID update, I feel mostly fine, and I've never had a fever or lost my sense of taste in the last week and a half (except for my decision to watch "Jungle Cruise", that is...) so it's probably time to think about getting back to work. If I can pass a home test today then maybe I'll get a real lab test on Tuesday and return to the theater on Thursday night, if I can.  I missed a free screening of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" but maybe I can catch a cheap matinee screening this week, and review it in June. I've been going stir crazy at home, leading me to sneak out for a walk yesterday to get cold cuts from the pork store and again today to get bagels. 

Djimon Hounsou carries over from "A Quiet Place Part II". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Kingsman: The Secret Service" (Movie 2,289), "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" (Movie #3,064)

THE PLOT: In the early years of the 20th century, the Kingsman agency is formed to stand 

AFTER: OK, I feel much better about flipping around those twenty or so movies in my chain - tonight's film is set during World War I, aka the Great War, and I've got a bunch of stuff set during the World War II era in the next two weeks, and isn't that right where I'd want to be, with Memorial Day coming up?  I'm just glad that I caught the opportunity when I did, and made the adjustment in time.  

This film uses the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as something of a jumping-off point, Gavrilo Princip is a character here, and the shooting goes down in Sarajevo more or less like it did in real life, though with a few liberties, I'm sure.  But here Princip is part of a larger cabal that includes Mata Hari, Vladimir Lenin, Rasputin and others.  It's all in fun, done for the convenience of the story, and I'm sure there are some conspiracy theorists out there who will shout, "I KNEW IT", and that other sound you hear is your high school history teacher slamming his face into his palm.  

King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas were COUSINS?  Yes, this is true...umm, mostly. The conceit here is that all three historical figures are played by the same actor, to highlight this point - identical cousins, just like on the Patty Duke show, or that kid from school who somehow looked exactly like Peter Brady on "The Brady Bunch" (they never did explain that one fully...).  This is a historical fact that I've never heard before, though - the family tree of the British, Danish and Russian royal families are so inter-connected that it turns out that THREE of the world leaders during World War I were closely related - Kaiser Wilhelm and King George V were first cousins, and George and Tsar Nicholas II were also first cousins, but Wilhelm and Nicholas were third cousins, and all three men were also FIFTH cousins. But NITPICK POINT, the film states that all three men were grand-children of Queen Victoria, when as far as I can tell, only two of them were, Wilhelm and George. Nicholas married Victoria's granddaughter, Princess Alix, so she was only his grandmother-in-law. But why didn't I learn this in history class?

The use of Rasputin as a villain here is also inspired - history describes him as a mystic, healer, reigious charlatin and advisor to the tsar, and his scandalous reputation indirectly led to the fall of the Romanov dynasty - he was assassinated a few weeks before the tsar was overthrown. Really, it's just a small narrative leap to suggest that he might have been working to take down the monarcy from within.  And it's been a historical theory that British Secret Service agents might have been involved with Rasputin's death, because he was urging for the tsar to negotiate peace with Germany, which would have allowed Germany to concentrate its forces on the Western Front, making things more difficult for the U.K. and its allies.  And then on the night of Rasputin's death, he was poisoned with cyanide in a cake, which appeared to not affect him at all - then he was shot THREE times, which is true, and that means the first two shots didn't seem to be fatal, so that raises some questions, and then after the third shot to the forehead, he was drowned in the river for good measure.  Either this was a very tough dude, or some kind of weird juju magic or supernatural healing was taking place. 

But Princip, Mata Hari and the others are all taking their orders from the mysterious Shepherd here - whose face is always obscured by a mask or a fencing helmet, or he's seen from the back or in shadows. I must say I was surprised here, I couldn't figure out who the character really was, but I probably should have.  No spoilers here, but kudos on keeping me guessing somehow. 

This film reminded me of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", an underrated film that I really like - that's another film based on a comic book that took a bunch of literary characters from a bunch of different genres and blended them all together for great affect.  "The King's Man" basically does the same thing, just with real historical characters from the early 20th century - it's a great idea and a VAST improvement over the last film in the franchise, which got very silly indeed.  I'll once again make my pitch for a sequel to TLOEG, I know Sean Connery's no longer alive, and his character died in the first film, but neither of those things should be an impediment, his character could easily be resurrected and recast, and the story could continue.  Or they could adapt the second volume of the comic book, which featured Dr. Jekyll, Mina Harker, Captain Nemo and the Invisible Man taking on Martians in a "War of the Worlds"-type scenario. Allan Quartermain could easily be replaced by John Carter, or Terry Prendrick from "The Island of Dr. Moreau", and defeating the Martians with anthrax or streptococcus could be a nice nod to the pandemic.  Just saying.  

Speaking of viruses, I went back and re-read my review of "Kingsman: The Golden Circle", which was released in 2017 and featured a Trump-like president who wanted to round up all the sick people and put them in camps - and that was TWO YEARS before COVID-19 was even a thing, so what was going on there?  Now, this wasn't a slam-dunk bit of prognostication, because people were getting sick from drugs, and not from a virus - but still, kind of on the nose, right?  But as I pointed out in my review, it didn't make much sense that a cabal dealing a drug would want their customers to get sick, because then if they die, that's bad for business.  I also had huge problems with the film's obsession about putting characters into this giant meat grinder and having them come out the other side looking just like ground beef, with no explanation about what happened to their clothing, bones, or dental fillings.  Also, it didn't make sense that the Golden Circle would attack the Kingsman agency, which wasn't even aware of its presence. 

Anyway, "The King's Man" is a vast improvement over the last film in the franchise, which I scored as a "7", so this film's score has to be at least one better. It's a clever idea to have a network of servants (maids, butlers) that stretches across the globe and works for some very influential people on both sides. The Duke of Oxford, who we all figure will someday form the Kingsman agency, hides in plain sight as a pacifist who secretly controls all the other agents, and has the king's confidence. Because of the loss of his wife, he forbids his son from entering military service, begrudgingly allowing him to learn fighting skills and military tactics, without allowing him to enlist.  His army of servants manages to decode the Zimmerman telegram, which is another piece of real history - Germany was trying to get Mexico to attack the U.S. so that America would be too busy to enter World War I.  I'm not sure I follow the logic here, because if America had been attacked, as it later was in Pearl Harbor, wouldn't that have drawn the U.S. INTO the war, rather than kept it out?  

As extra insurance, Mata Hari heads to the White House and seduces President Wilson, for blackmail material to keep the U.S. out of the war.  This is very Clintonian, but come on, we all know that most of the U.S. Presidents had something going on the side, this should come as no surprise. FDR was a horny beast, and Eisenhower had a side piece assistant, and don't get me started on JFK and Trump - Bill Clinton was nothing new, this has been going on back to the days of Thomas Jefferson, right?  Maybe one or two of them were faithful to their wives, but come on, that's why an American man runs for President, for the extra action.  

Now I'm going to request a "King's Man II", as soon as possible - the film ends with the actual formation of the agency, with a star-studded line-up among the first five agents, and a hint about who the main villain in the next film might be. (Hint, he's got a unique moustache...). I know you've got to be careful with anything related to Nazis, it could easily devolve into cartoonish depictions of the Holocaust - but if they could just maintain THIS tone into the next film, and respect history just enough, then I'm all for it. 

Also starring Ralph Fiennes (last seen in "Wuthering Heights" (1992)), Gemma Arterton (last seen in "How to Build a Girl"), Rhys Ifans (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Harris Dickinson (last seen in "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"), Matthew Goode (last seen in "The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales"), Tom Hollander (last seen in "Bohemian Rhapsody"), Daniel Brühl (last seen in "A Most Wanted Man"), Charles Dance (last seen in "Johnny English Strikes Again"), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (last seen in "A Milliion Little Pieces"), Stanley Tucci (last seen in "Shall We Dance?"), Joel Basman (last seen in "Papillon" (2017)), Valerie Pachner, Alexandra Maria Lara (last seen in "Geostorm"), Olivier Richters (last seen in "Black Widow"), Todd Boyce (last seen in "The Batman"), Aaron Vodovoz, Ron Cook (last seen in "Lucky Break"), Barbara Drennan (last seen in "Rocketman"), Branka Katic (last seen in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"), Alison Steadman, Cassidy Little, August Diehl (last seen in "Allied"), Ian Kelly, (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1") Alexander Shaw, David Kross (last seen in "The Reader"), Kristian Wanzi Nekrasov, David Calvitto, Alexander Shefler, Rosie Goddard, Dora Davis, Lucia Jade Barker, Molly McGeachin, James Musgrave, Nigel Lister, Russell Balogh, Stefan Schiffer, Tim Bruce, Ian Porter (last seen in "Dumbo" (2019)), Simon Connolly, Neil Jackson (last seen in "Welcome to Marwen"), Alexa Povah, Ross Anderson, Pippa Winslow, Constantine Gregory (last seen in "6 Underground").

RATING: 8 out of 10 glasses of Statesman whisky