Critics reviews

All the broad humor of the original film is gone, replaced by clunky and often tasteless gags, and the attempts to extract pathos from genuine tragedies vary from tacky to insulting.

The historical setup for this prequel misses perhaps the most essential element of the previous “Kingsman” pictures: the tension between a traditional buttoned-up, finely tailored conception of British-ness and the contemporary reality of streetwear and slang.

Mainly, [the film] has Ralph Fiennes to ensure that the center holds. As Orlando, Duke of Oxford and the spy agency’s founder, Fiennes might read more cuddly than studly, but he lends a surprising gravitas to this flibbertigibbet feature.

A charismatic cast and occasionally entertaining piece of action choreography keep it from complete tedium, but this odd hybrid of war drama and patriotic action orgy never finds its groove.

After seven years of movies, “The King’s Man” tries to provide a foundation, a reason, for its predecessors to exist, but despite all of the resources at its disposal and with endless goodwill from audiences to build upon, this latest chapter somehow feels even more pointless than those earlier ones do.

The real sin of The King’s Man is its near-total lack of fun. It’s a movie that wants to bemoan the monstrousness of war while also trying to pack in kick-ass action set pieces, and the result is that the former feels wildly insincere while the latter are just uninspired.

Think too hard about it and you’ll give yourself a headache. Happily, the action is so slick and the cast so committed it is easy to push all that to one side and wallow in the imaginative absurdity... Best Kingsman yet.

Not only is “The King’s Man” a tonal mess, it’s also just a set-up for a movie with an even more enticing cast that’ll leave you feeling even more conflicted. But you have to admire a modern franchise that has an appreciation of bespoke tailoring as a core principle. If only “The Kingsman” movies didn’t also hold such juvenile humor in equally high esteem.

Before long, Vaughn is ripping up the rule book when it comes to period movies. Offering some mighty fine set-pieces, including a stomach-churning aerial sequence, The King’s Man is anything but old-fashioned. It’s a right royal riot.

[The King's Man] is at once more bonkers and more staid than either of its predecessors... Vaughn’s stylistic signature of balletic brutality is among the film’s pleasures, although the narrative’s hybrid tone — part academic, part acid trip — is not.

Fiennes’s presence is the chief virtue, along with some handsome production values and a sword cam (yes, a sword cam). They are welcome in a movie that’s morally incoherent and historically incontinent.

It’s not forgettable trash, it’s MEMORABLY BAD... “The King’s Man” has little of the wickedly outrageous and subversive style of the original film as it flies this way and that and never sticks the landing.