As the title suggests, I went into this film without having seen the previous films or knowing anything about the franchise. This was, in a way, a fun approach to viewing this film; I had no expectations or preconceptions.

The King’s Man is, I guess, what action-adventure is as a genre today.

The story is a fan fiction-esque reimagining of WW1 where all the political complexities are replaced by a shadowy supervillain with the worst/best Scottish accent of all time. It has all the period favourites; King George, Wilhelm, Romanov, Rasputin, Mata Hari and even Lord Kitchener. While this may be the point, the plot does tend to feel like a 12 year-old perused a history of WW1 before acting it out with army men and Lego.

For me, the wildest aspect of the film is the pendulum-like tonal shifts from grimy war film to camp spy movie that at times feels painfully reminiscent of 90s James Bond. How I am supposed to believe that “war is hell” when not five mins prior I saw Rasputin lick up and down Ralph Fiennes’ leg?

Something that’s very apparent (and seems to be a theme of a lot of 2020s film and television) is a dedication to subvert expectations in order to surprise the audience, whether we like it or not. Without giving away any spoilers, the plot takes it’s time to convolute events just to keep everything novel and “fresh”. However the 140 minute runtime could have easily been 100 minutes if it trusted the intelligence of the audience.

Overall, The King’s Man is a decent popcorn flick. Watch it, if for no other reason than to see Ralph Fiennes get all his action movies out of his system before he’s officially an old man.