WRITING WRONGS (THE KING'S MAN)

 

It's fair to say that the film and television industry has become a bit too obsessed with franchises.

Few could quibble with 'Star Trek,' 'Star Wars,' 'Jurassic Park' or Marvel earning the right to their sequels and reboots.

However on the evidence of some recent attempts, the franchise obsession of some studios is bordering on the ridiculous.

With no track record to speak of, the 'Fear Street' slasher trilogy suddenly landed on Netflix last summer with a very dull thud.

With 'The Mummy,' 'Van Helsing' and 'Godzilla versus Kong,' Universal's "Monsterverse" has plodded along with grandiose production values but terrible plots.

And now, Matthew Vaughn's overrated secret agent romp 'The Kingsman' has spawned two films that audiences didn't really need.

The original 'Kingsman' with Taron Edgerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Mark Hamill and Samuel L Jackson in 2015 did phenomenal business - earning $414 million at the box office, making a sequel inevitable.

It was a hit with some critics who thought it was smart and edgy.

Vaughn's 2017 follow-up 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' with Edgerton, Firth, Julianne Moore, Pedro Pascal, Jeff Bridges and Elton John did just as well.

However it was regarded by most critics as a step backwards.

Encouraged by its box office performance and undeterred by the criticism, Vaughn has now directed a third film but has opted instead with his co-screenwriter Karl Gadjusek to go for an origin story.

Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Djimon Honsou and Harris Dickinsob have been recruited for 'The King's Man' - see what Matthew did there?

Rhys Ifans, Stanley Tucci, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander, Charles Dance and Daniel Bruhl have also been persuaded to come along for the ride.

The resulting film is one of the most inept blockbusters of recent times.

At the start of Vaughn's film, Fiennes' Lord Orlando Oxford and Alexandra Maria Lara's Lady Emily Oxford travel through South Africa with their 10 year old son, Alexander Shaw's Conrad as well as Honsou's servant Shola and colleagues from the Red Cross.

Lord Oxford calls into a British Army camp to catch up with Charles Dance's General Herbert Kitchener and is shocked to see emaciated Boers being held captive.

During the visit, the Army come under fire from a Boer sniper and Oxford is wounded in the leg.

Before Shola can kill the sniper, Lady Oxford is felled by a bullet - leaving her husband to grieve her and raise their son.

The incident makes the pacifist Lord Oxford even more determined to do everything he can to prevent the world sliding into conflict.

Twelve years on, he has formed a clandestine spy network to stop such wars, involving Shola and another servant, Gemma Arterton's Polly.

What he hasn't counted on, though, is the dastardly plan of some baldy guy with a mangled Scottish accent who thinks he's a cross between Begbie from 'Trainspotting' and Rab C Nesbitt.

Known as The Shepherd, he's determined to have conflict in Europe and has assembled a rogues gallery consisting of Ifans' Rasputin, Valerie Pachner's Mata Hari, Bruhl's Erik Jan Hanussen and Joel Badman's Gavrilo Princip.

As in 'The Naked Gun,' the villains meet in a remote location - a mountain top goat farm - where they are shouted at by the angry fake Scotsman.

He wants them to start a war by assassinating Ron Cook's Archduke Franz Ferdinand but to keep Tsarist Russia and the United States out of the conflict.

Unfortunately Lord Oxford isn't Lieutenant Frank Drebin.

Unable to disrupt their plan, he is present when Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated by Princip, resulting in the First World War.

Meanwhile in Russia, Rasputin starts to manipulate Tom Hollander's Tsar Nicholas by poisoning his young son Alexei and then curing him on the proviso that the country will not go to war.

The Shepherd also has Bruhl's Erik Jan Hanussen, an aide to Hollander's Kaiser Wilhelm, distracting British and US military intelligence to the point where Ian Kelly's President Woodrow Wilson is reluctant to get involved.

August Diehl's Vladimir Lenin is recruited to The Shepherd's cause, while Mata Hari gets to deploy her particular set of skills later on in the White House.

Fortunately, Harris Dickinson's grown up version of Conrad has his ear to the ground and soon he, his dad and Shola are galavanting around Russia getting into fist fights with Rasputin in the name of peace.

Can Lord Oxford and his gang keep the world from sliding into tyranny and carnage?

Can they do this while keeping their smart tailored suits immaculately clean?

Why is Rasputin stroking Lord Oxford's leg?

And when will the actor playing The Shepherd stop ranting like Rab C Nesbitt? 

'The King's Man' is a clumsy, meat headed action adventure that cares very little for the way it casually and insensitively treats history.

Vaughn's film runs around in hobnail boots trampling over significant events in the First World War in the most obnoxious way imaginable.

And while there is nothing wrong about celebrating an English sense of decency, the film sneers at other nationalities with crude stereotypes.

It's hard to fathom how actors as accomplished, astute and talented as Fiennes, Honsou, Arterton and Hollander have ended up in this mess.

Watching Fiennes run about with a pained expression on his face for much of the film, as if he has just pulled a hamstring, is depressing and distressing. 

Honsou, Dickinson, Hollander whose multiple roles includes King George, Bruhl, Matthew Goode, Alison Steadman, Dance, Badman, Pachner, Cook, Kelly and Diehl trot out cardboard performances from a cardboard script.

Ifans massively overacts as Rasputin but who can blame him?

What else is there to do?

Tucci is underused and while Aaron Taylor Johnson appears, he makes no impression.

While Arterton has a bit more vivacity, her presence feels like a token gesture designed to appeal to modern female action hero tastes.

Tonally, Vaughn's film is all over the place.

One minute it is bemoaning the horrors of war, the next it is revelling in all the violence.

While aiming in some sequences for '1917,' it soon resorts to James Bond style set pieces.

As handsome as the production is, 'The King's Man' just cannot overcome the inadequacies of its script.

Vaughn is never able to reconcile the central contradiction of pacifists fighting for global peace.

The film's flippant tone also jars with its more serious aspirations.

In reality, 'The King's Man' and its predecessors have never really made a convincing argument as to why the world needs another British spy franchise - especially in the era of Daniel Craig's 007.

Vaughn's tendency to indulge his worst excesses has also hindered its cause.

As he once again goes for broke, the director plays fast and loose with events leading up to and during the First World War and it is that crassness and lack of sensitivity that quickly undermines the film.

The depiction of its Russian, German, American characters and its Scottish villain is stereotypical, lazy and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

While you could imagine 'The Kingsman' series being a Sun reader's favourite film franchise, is that really what we are aiming for these days?

As an action adventure, 'The King's Man' is careless, convoluted, messy and pompous. 

Like other franchises, it takes the trouble to set up a follow up which hints at another insensitive trudge through history.

Towards the end of the film, we catch a glimpse of David Kross' Adolf Hitler.

The prospect of Vaughn, however, trying to address the Holocaust or the Second World War is terrifying.

Where's Frank Drebin when you need him?

('The King's Man' was released in UK and Irish cinemas on December 26, 2021)