Even before visiting the cinema, it will benefit viewers if they accept as a fact that the novelty has very little in common with the two previous films Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle. It is a prequel that takes place long before the first film, at a time when the Kingsman Secret Service was just forming.
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This is a fairly common move for successful films, because you can de facto do anything. In addition, from an spectator, therefore commercial, point of view, it is an advantage that you do not need to know the previous two films to visit the news. In this case, it’s almost to the detriment of things.
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This is because while the first two films were pure and humorous plotting, this time the plot combines historical reality with fiction, which is something quite different, and unfortunately it did not manage to connect the two lines organically enough.
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The story begins in 1902 in South Africa, where the protagonist, the Duke of Oxford, played by the always magnificent Ralph Fiennes, experiences a trauma that is severely and forever marked above all by his relationship with his son, whom he will never allow to grow up.
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Following this prologue, we move ten years further, shortly before the First World War, which is announced by the invitation of the Duke of Oxford to a meeting with Archduke Ferdinand, where else but in Sarajevo. The following plot then alternates quite realistically presented war events on the front and in the background with fictional stories, which unfortunately only remotely recall the charming period stylization of the first part in particular.
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History will not change fundamentally, Austria-Hungary will not win the war, so there is no tension in that direction, and the creation of the Kingsman secret service is not even connected organic enough, it seems that it was a bit of an excuse to make a film.
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However, the main problem of the film is the genre imbalance. From the beginning, serious things are played seriously, the film puts a lot of pressure on the emotions, the characters are scattered by numerous philosophical wisdom. It is precisely this ethical-philosophical-moral line that, however, fits the cast of Ralph Fiennes, who plays the aristocrat full of doubts exactly. But then, as if from time to time, the filmmakers suddenly remembered that it would take some forum, an exaggeration that pulled the first film so reliably.
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There is no denying that almost every time they “wake up” and put their humor into a film, they are successful, sometimes quite black, sometimes humorously self-parody. But then, surprisingly, but rather unobtrusively, he classifies really harsh war scenes as from another film, including the atrocities, nonsense of the war and millions of unnecessarily dead.
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Rasputin is also a strong and funny character in the excellent performance of Rhyse Ifans. He presents himself, among other things, as a martial arts master, and his fight, filmed as a spectacular dance, is one of the film’s highlights. On the contrary, the other characters are less prominent. Harris Oxford, played by Harris Dickinson, does not have the charm of Taron Egerton from previous films, and Mata Hari, for example, is a useless character.
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Visually and directing, however, the film can hardly be criticized, it’s a spectacle. Vaughn is never bored, he masters the action scenes with confidence and with a lot of fun ideas, although sometimes they are a bit like Bonds. And if he still stayed under control and didn’t stretch the film for an unnecessary 131 minutes, he would do well.
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| Kingsman: First mission |
| Great Britain / USA 2021, 131 min. Director: Matthew Vaughn, starring: Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Matthew Goode, Harris Dickinson and others |
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