THE KING‘S MAN
(directed by Matthew Vaughn, 2021)
***+ (out of 5)
.
> This third installment of the KINGSMAN series is an origin story that breaks the mold.
. Simply, THE KING’S MAN is still fantasy, but this time with a generous dose of history mixed in. It’s still an action pic, but far more serious minded- and for my money, the best of the three. Where the previous incarnations dealt more with the new blood in the secret British spy agency, this is Ralph Fiennes’ movie- and that’s always a promising venture. He is a smashing actor. And he gives it his best effort here.
. After serious tragedy strikes his family, former pacifist Orlando, Duke of Oxford, finds a new mission in life. Downing Street was not proving effective to confront the insane challenges of a new century on the cusp of war. It was time for an extra-governmental entity- a secret cabal of independent British superspies to address the threats to his pal Archduke Franz Ferdinand (We all know how well that ended!), as part of a plot to pit the world’s three great superpowers against one another. Before it’s all over, Orlando and his team must confront killers like Vladimir Lenin, Mata Hari, an unrecognizable Rhys Ifans as a supremely menacing Grigori Rasputin- and in the end, a dangerous young upstart named ‘Adolph Hitler’.
. Is the plot complicated? About as convoluted as any film I ever saw! And yet I was able to follow every ridiculously improbable storyline twist with ease- and immense enjoyment. The action is fast and furious, and Fiennes, at the center of it all, seems game for anything. Okay, so he couldn’t stop WWI. Maybe with Ralph’s help, the Kingsmen can stop World War II?
– I wouldn’t hold your breath.
*
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