It's February 2022 and I can't stop thinking about The King's Man.
Seriously, I can't. I've seen several movies since, including the excellent The Matrix Resurrections and finally seeing Real Genius, but this is the one I can't get out of my head. The film itself is fine, it delivers on action and as a fan of World War I-set films such as 1917, I had to see it. But what I walked away from and what's stuck with me since is that the film has the most utterly deranged politics and view of politics that I've seen in recent memory.
Photo courtesy 20th Century.
Director Matthew Vaughn's latest movie doesn't believe in popular movements or direct action in political change. At the same time, it's one of the most vehemently anti-war, anti-nationalism films in recent memory. Imagine, if you will, that World War I and all of its related social movements or uprisings were caused by the Legion of Doom. That's The King's Man.
Think of any notable figures around the time of World War I who weren't heads of state. Chances are they're sitting around a table in this film with special group rings plotting the mass death of millions in a pointless war. Again, this is not a joke, this is the movie.
I enjoyed the first film; as a huge fan of spy fiction its romping pastiche of the genre was delightful. The sequel, The Golden Circle, much less so. Talk about a misstep. But when I heard about the third film's setting, and saw the cast (Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Bruhl, Gemma Arterton, Djimon Honsou, Aaron Taylor Johnson....it's stacked), I had to see it. Previous co-writer Jane Goldman departed the series, so Vaughn wrote it alongside Karl Gajdusek and something is missing. It takes a long time to really get going, instead being bogged down by the fridging of Oxford's (Ralph Fiennes) wife and repetitive scenes of him arguing with his son Conrad (Harry Dickinson) about the latter wanting to join the army in World War I. Once things do get moving, the film is a blast; the action is wild and kinetic in a thrilling way and the plot has strong pacing.
It just has a wild view of how politics work. The Legion of Doom, here called the Flock includes Rasputin, Mata Hari, Gavrillo Princip and more. When Rasputin is dispatched of (with injuries matching history, to the film’s credit), the Shepherd simply recruits Vladimir Lenin in his place, with the entire Russian Revolution and Bolshevik takeover presented as the Shepherd's machinations. Never mind that Kerensky had power after the czar abdicated and Lenin and the Bolsheviks didn't take power until many months later. In this world, long-time inequality and political disenfranchisement weren't an issue. The revolution was not an outpouring of the people's anger but instead a nation was the pawn of an unseen mastermind.
It's interesting, one of the first movies I saw in 2021 was Judas and the Black Messiah, The King's Man was one of the last. They're extremely different films, with different genres and focus, but the former is in part about the strength of solidarity and how movements succeed through mass action, with powerful figures only able to do so much. In The King's Man, collective action seems irrelevant, change comes from the actions of a few, manipulating many.
At the same time, the film is brutal in its assault on nationalism and royalty. The King's Man is at its best when showing the brutality and pointlessness of the Great War. British King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Czar Nicholas II (all played by Tom Hollander, which is a clever touch) are fickle and explicitly contrasted with bickering children. No side of WWI looks heroic. War itself is hell. Two standout scenes include slaughter in the trenches and one time lapse of an idyllic field being turned to hell on earth via entrenchment and bombardment. The film itself opens during the Second Boer War, with the British's concentration camps on full display in all of their brutality.
One thing the Kingsmen films have been is political, at least in attacking the British class system. The first film was all about lower-class recruit Eggsy (Taron Egerton) defying the doubts of his snobbish peers and proving himself a hero. Although that ideal version of a hero is a dapper, Savile Row-clad gentleman. Vaughn and Goldman, through mentor figure Harry (Colin Firth), point out the historic cruelty of “gentle men” but there is still a heroic image of someone in the aesthetics and abilities of the upper class. And at the same time, it gives something of a pass to British King George V. He's one person Oxford looks up to who can get through to him, and he is not as easily manipulated as his relatives. Maybe it's Vaughn's Britishness at work here, but it is offputting given the otherwise scathing view of power in WWI.
But The King's Man takes its trivialization of movements and supervillain aesthetics to a height I didn't expect. Readers, this is a spoiler warning, a massive one, but I have to talk about it. I hate spoiling anything and tried for the most part to avoid talking the big twists in The King's Man, but this one I have to talk about.
SPOILERS
During a mid-credits scene, with the Shepherd defeated, Erik Jan Hanussen (Daniel Bruhl, always enjoyable) has taken over the Legion of Do — err, the Flock, and introduces Lenin to his newest teammate. And out of the shadows walks Adolf Hitler.
Adolf Goddamn Hitler is brought in like he's Nick Fury at the end of Iron Man. Hitler! Someone in the theater I saw this in (it was a free advance screening) shouted “what!?” And I agree. Hitler in this universe isn't a reactionary xenophobe grifting his nation into the false promises of fascism, but a henchman in a supervillain team working for a secret master. What the hell? Is this a sequel hook? Is Hitler going to be a martial arts expert the way Rasputin was a master swordsman here?
It was all so weird. Maybe see the film when it hits streaming. The World War I sequence is worth it. But wow. I want to know what Vaughn and Gajdusek were thinking when they wrote this.
Today's Panic Reading
The head of security at FSU’s Strozier Library has been charged with stealing thousands of rare comic books and selling them.
And here is a great dive into the money behind celebrity NFT buying.
Today's Panic Music
If the title of this edition of the newsletter wasn’t a big clue, the song today is Gang of Four’s “Not Great Men.” Entertainment! is a masterpiece and this song takes no prisoners.
I don't know a single history enjoyer who wasn't deeply annoyed by this film. I almost wish it had been part of a history assignment in school, "watch it and explain all that is wrong with it". Almost. It sounds like fun.