The challenges faced by the Kingsman franchise

This is The Kingsman, the third entry in the Kingsman series, which is actually a prequel to the other two films. And yet, it barely feels like a Kingsman film. The entire film feels a little flat. The fight scenes lack any style or panache, and it feels like it struggles to find its own identity in the universe Mark Miller and Matthew Vaughn created for the series. Sometimes the first films in a franchise set an extremely high bar, so high that the subsequent films in the series actually have trouble reaching it. When you add some excessive release problems due to an unexpected global pandemic onto a film that doesn't quite live up to audience expectations, you have a recipe for a fairly mediocre reception. Tonight, it will be Rome's, not Oxford's. The Kingsman film franchise is an adaptation of a series of graphic novels created by Mark Miller and Dave Gibbons. Miller had already found commercial success in adapting his comics with films like Kick-Ass and Wanted. The franchise was actually born from a conversation between Mark Miller and director Matthew Vaughn about the James Bond reboot, Casino Royale. The two were confused as to why Casino Royale was marketed as an origin story for James Bond without ever showing James Bond in an MI6 Academy. This was the story they wanted to see. And thus, Kingsman was born. The film series has made a name for itself by featuring heavily stylized high tech violence in a modern day take on the James Bond films of the 1970s. And the film delivers this in spades. But as the series has gone on, it seems to have lost sight about what has made the franchise so successful in the first place. Are we going to stand around here all day, or are we going to fight? The first Kingsman film is pretty much a perfect movie as far as action films are concerned. This is probably because the film sticks extremely close to the source material on which its narrative is based on. It tells an incredible, complete, and relatable origin story while coming full circle on a high-stakes narrative that is interesting, dire, and culturally relevant. Matthew Vaughn's direction shines through as Taron Egerton's Eggsy and Colin Firth's Harry Hart battle their way towards saving the world, and the fight choreography peppered throughout the film is second to none. It's fun, frantic, tense, and charming. But more importantly, it leaves us wanting more, which we would eventually receive in The Kingsman, The Golden Circle. The second entry into the film franchise isn't necessarily a bad film, but its departure from the source material leaves us with a product that feels a little lackluster when you compare it to its predecessor. The second entry into the comic series is actually called Kingsman, The Red Diamond, and it shares almost nothing in common with this film. Kingsman The Golden Circle almost feels a little too over the top at times and plays out more like a parody of spy films than an homage to them. Matthew Vaughn set out to make a sequel to The Secret Service feel more like one of the Roger Moore Bond films. And since the first film is such a direct nod to the Connery Bond films, this actually seems like a logical next step for the series. This just didn't resonate with the audiences quite well. It's quite hard to put a finger on what exactly feels so off about this film. The action is there, the story is there, but the vibe feels like it shifted just enough to take the film away from what made the first Kingsman film so great. The film also suffers from a lack of heart. In The Secret Service, we were watching a Kingsman rise from an unlikely candidate from humble beginnings to a fully fledged spy. Manners maketh man. In The Golden Circle, we are just sort of watching Eggsy's character go pretty much unchallenged while his mentor regains his memory after a near fatal attack in the first film. The film features a ton of Kingsman signature stylized high-tech combat, and it's undoubtedly fun to watch. But without the story to back up the action, these sequences feel like a martial arts special effects showcase with themed weaponry. Manners maketh man. This brings us to The King's Man. The third entry into the Kingsman franchise was released in December of 2021. And you might not have even noticed that the film had a theatrical release at all due to how quickly the film ended up on streaming services. There were only 45 days that had passed between the time the film left theaters to when it started showing up on platforms like Hulu and HBO Max. The King's Man theatrical run truly was blink and you'll miss it. You also may have missed it because this film had eight different release dates. The initial release date was November 8, 2019, but that got pushed back to 2020, most likely due to Fox's merger with Disney. Then 2020 happened, and every film's release date was in flux. In 2021, the studio was looking to bring Matthew Vaughn's The King's Man to a theater near you in August when news that Mortal Kombat, F9, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Zack Snyder's Justice League would release around the same time, they finally settled on an actual release date, December 22, 2021, just in time for the holidays and for Spider-Man No Way Home to become the sixth highest grossing picture of all time. What the ? On top of this confusion as to just when people would be able to watch The King's Man, audiences were equally confused when they got into the theaters because The King's Man doesn't feel like The King's Man movie they'd expect it to be. Part of the reason audiences click with the Kingsman films is because they are a modern, violent, and stylized take on a genre of films with a very wide appeal, James Bond films. The King's Man, however, was written as a pastiche of an entirely different genre of film. According to Matthew Vaughn, The King's Man was originally going to be titled The Man Who Would Be Kingsman and was intended to be an homage to classic adventure films like The Man Who Would Be King or Lawrence of Arabia. These are two of the best films ever made, but they aren't nearly as prominent in modern moviegoer culture as something like James Bond. On top of that, Matthew Vaughn also tries to tie this adventure pastiche in with the lore surrounding the Kingsman, and the end result feels like a vodka martini with a hot dog inside of it. It's two things that are fine on their own, but when you combine them, something starts to feel a little strange. Nothing really reaches out and commands our attention during The Kingsman. Sure, it's an interesting enough story, but the complete That departure from anything that feels remotely like a Kingsman film throws us off throughout the entire duration of the film. The early 1900s setting removes any of the exciting technological components from the execution of the story, and for a franchise known for not pulling any punches when it comes to fight choreography, the combat scenes in the Kingsman feel, quite frankly, boring. Take for instance the fight scene between Rasputin and Cholo. The fight scene is heavily inspired by Russian ballet, but it never really piques our interest in the same way, let's say, the church fight from the first Kingsman movie feels. There's no real style to it, no punchy, in-your-face moments, and they abandon the modern music for Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture. It's a good fight scene that highlights some really interesting cultural elements, but is it a good Kingsman fight scene? The war sequences in the film are really amazing to watch, but they feel a little out of place from what we'd expect from a Kingsman film. In fact, almost all the content in The Kingsman related to the development of the Kingsman franchise, feels like someone trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't feel like it really belongs, and instead feels like someone took a pre-existing script and just loosely wrote The Kingsman onto it. There are no real espionage elements to the film either. The film removes all of that to weave a narrative around a period piece. There are some really amazing sequences involving World War I and European history, but that's not what we go to see a Kingsman movie for. Reputation is what people think of you, character. is what you are kingsman is a franchise that built itself by walking the impossibly thin line between parody and pastiche without ever stepping too far into either unfortunately this fine line that the first film was able to walk with such ease started to fade away into the second film while almost completely deteriorating in the most recent entry into the series the franchise known for its frantic and chaotic take on spy films had devolved into a lackluster take on a somewhat dead genre, and The King's Man just doesn't really stand up next to its predecessors. While this film may have been a bit of a misfire, it does seem as if we'll be getting more King's Men in the future. King's Men The Blue Blood is currently in development, and according to Matthew Vaughn, will begin production in September of 2022 in hopes of a release sometime in early 2023.