James Proclaims!

Matthew Vaughn’s 2021 movie The King’s Man is a sort of spinoff/sort of prequel to the British director’s Kingsman film series, the first of which made last year’s iteration of my advent calendar.

Set around a century before the original movies, it depicts a version of the First World War that bears little resemblance to actual historic events and instead relies heavily on suspended disbelief to navigate the plot.

It is by no means a great movie, but like the other installments in the series, it’s fairly enjoyable in the context of a light-hearted mindless action film.

It does have a surprisingly good cast, who all seem to be trying (mainly in vain) to elevate the movie from the run-of-the-mill popcorn flic that it was always intended to be.

Score for Christmasishness

While it is certainly not Christmas throughout the film, about 15-20 minutes of the film do take place over Christmas. It’s an admittedly fairly violent Christmas in Russia but there is a nice Christmas tree. So The King’s Man is more than deserving of it’s place in my annual festive countdown.