The King's Man (2021) Holy crap, what a mess......
What a way to self destruct a wildly entertaining series.....
And finally, what a way of forcing us to declare that we've seen what's so far the most crushingly disappointing movie of 2021.....
Writer-director Matthew Vaughn showed everyone a good time with his two slyly funny, actioned -packed adventures of the "the Kingsmen", the ever dapper, elegant British secret service agents who save us all from global destructive villainy. ("Kingsman: The Secret Service" (2014), "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" (2017))
Alas, serious delusions of grandeur overtook him in fashioning this 3rd entry in the series, an origins prequel that makes insanely wrong-headed attempts to blend Vaughn's over-the-top, "Kingsman" nonsense with serious, early 20th century history.
Vaughn spends a tedious 130 minutes alternating between making the film look like a sumptuously accurate re-creation of World War I Europe and a comic book style turn-of-the-century Bond movie.
This fool's errand of trying to accomplish two completely different genres and their different cinematics drags the film down to a slow crawl, then every so often juices it back up again with loony CGI-driven set pieces......(but not nearly enough.)
The result's exhausting and dispiriting to watch.......something we thought we'd never write in a review of a "Kingsman" movie......
"The King's Man" spends a lot of time applauding itself for inserting its fictitious characters into actual depictions of historical events and the real people involved....(such as the assassinations of Arch Duke Ferdinand and his wife and Rasputin's mesmerizing hold over Czar Nicholas and his family)
If that sounds like it could be fun, well, in at least one sequence, the movie's nutso collision of non-fiction and fantasy does take flight.....
Which brings us to the movie's singular MVP - we speak of actor Rhys Ifans and his funny-scary, take-no-prisoners, all-stops-out portrayal of everyone's favorite mad Russian, Grigori Rasputin......
Ifans, clearly inspired by Tom Baker's chew-up-the-scenery Rasputin in "Nicholas and Alexandra" (see our post of 2/17/18 ) raises the loony-toon bar to all new heights.
And in the film's one gloriously giggly, memorable sequence, Vaughn interrupts his dreary fake history lessons, to let Ifans mix it up with his "Kingsman" Scooby-Doo gang (Ralph Fiennes, Harris Dickinson, Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Aterton). What ensues is a fractured, frenzied hilarious parody of Rasputin's actual death, only this time with Ifans dancing madly to the "1812 Overture".......
Yes, it's a brilliant showstopper of a sequence......and after it occurs halfway into the movie, it's all downhill from there.
Vaughn does make a strenuous effort to regain his "Kingsman" mojo in the big action-fight finale, but by the time, the film reveals its unseen, mysterious faux-Blofeld villain it's nothing but a 'big deal, who cares, so what?'
The end credits throw in a teaser that promises yet another prequel to take the Kingsman into World War 2, but if Matthew Vaughn actually gets around to making it, we'd give him this advice : don't try to imitate Christopher Nolan and Sam Mendes.....let your "Kingsman" freak flag fly wildly and do it as Matthew Vaughn and nobody else.....
For "The King's Man", 2 stars (**), primarily for Rhys Ifans and his rip-roarin', nimble-footed Rasputin.......
No comments:
Post a Comment