Two Movies: Free Guy and The King's Man

[Zaukrie]

Here's the best example. This is an obvious Hollywood move to make the character recognizable, while leaving him completely open to a rather messy death.

I agree, it is silly armor, but I can't imagine letting that bother me if I liked the movie.

 

[payn]

I agree, it is silly armor, but I can't imagine letting that bother me if I liked the movie.

Its not a fantasy story, its supposed to be a historical recreation. So, folks are a bit more picky about the details.

 

[Ryujin]

But then people would complain there was too much color, like they are about wheel of time....

And those people have never seen actual Medieval clothing. I swear, at least some of them had to be colourblind.

 

[Ryujin]

Its not a fantasy story, its supposed to be a historical recreation. So, folks are a bit more picky about the details.

Exactly. Anything goes in fantasy. If you are claiming to be making an actual historical piece, you should pay attention to the details. It's one of the things that I love about BBC productions.

 

[Ryujin]

Link to an illuminated manuscript of the "judicial combat", from the British Library.

Image of an item from the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts

This page describes and shows an image of an item in the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts

www.bl.uk

 

[Zaukrie]

Its not a fantasy story, its supposed to be a historical recreation. So, folks are a bit more picky about the details.

But why? I mean, you be you, but why care that much? If you like the movie, why let that bother you? I'm genuinely curious here, not judging. I'm no one to judge what others are entertained by...

 

[payn]

But why? I mean, you be you, but why care that much? If you like the movie, why let that bother you? I'm genuinely curious here, not judging. I'm no one to judge what others are entertained by...

No worries let me see if I can shed some light.

I was also annoyed that this story is about Frenchmen, who all speak English, with American accents... I place a higher base criteria on historical story telling. It adds to my enjoyment to pay attention to the details. Especially, when the director comes out swinging about "millennials don't care about history..." The real issue is Scott's blending fantasy and history for sometime now. Folks aint going because his movies are not that fantastic, nor are they that historical.

 

[Ryujin]

But why? I mean, you be you, but why care that much? If you like the movie, why let that bother you? I'm genuinely curious here, not judging. I'm no one to judge what others are entertained by...

Because it impacts that enjoyment. Having a passing interest in history, it takes me out of the immersion. For me, it's like watching a movie about motorcycle racing in which I can tell they're going about 30 MPH, or the sound doesn't match the type of bike. Modern racers in unarmoured leathers. Open face helmets so that you can see the stars' faces. In context, it just makes no sense.

 

[payn]

So, Sam Elliot is apparently way more into the details than I am.

 

[MarkB]

So, since others have commented on it, I might need to go into more depth, which requires spoilers.

Anyway, this is why I had so much trouble with the movie. Again, loved the component parts, but taken as a whole ... it sucked ... because ...

Spoiler: The King's Man Plot Points

When I say that the movie is like the actors don't know if they are in Austin Powers or All Quiet on the Western Front, I really mean it!

From the very beginning, the movie was incredibly confused in terms of tone. To start with, it opened on the Boer War. I get it- it's a trendy historical thing to say that the Boer War was a dress rehearsal for WW1, so there is a thematic reason for it. But let's be blunt- the Kingsman franchise, while having some serious parts, was mostly fun.

The Boer War is not fun. Watching a child's mom get murdered is not fun. The action wasn't cartoony or comedic, but relatively real. And there was no signaling for how the audience should feel. Wait- do the Brits are the bad guys, because they are the ones running the concentration camp? Or the Boer sniper, because he's trying to shoot the guy running the camp?

It's a mess of an opening, with no clarity. But a moral, right? Violence is bad. Do not do violence.

But then we get what should be the central emotional conflict of the story- father who promised to not allow his son to be involved in violence (and also will not kill again), and son who wants to go solider on in glory. Except ... it's WW1, see? So we have the son go off the fight in the trenches, and gets killed in terrible fashion after learning his dad was right (no violence!). But his dad, in order to make things right, learns that ... well, you gotta go out there and kill some people. In fact, his 'catharsis' comes at the end, when he kills the main baddy by letting him fall off the Angora sheep cliff (umm ... yeah).

Oh, and the baddie? That part of the story actually seems like it could have been a good Kingsmen story. See, it's a Scotsmen who wants to free his country from the British, so he gets this complicated plan that touches on most of WW1 and history. Something so stupid it almost makes sense. Except ... it doesn't. At any level. Because, again, you're mixing the comedy (ha ha the Great War and Rasputin and Mata Hari and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and even Lenin were all due to a desire for Scottish independence) with deadly-serious pathos (young boys getting mowed down in the WW1 trenches).

Nothing in the film works, tonally, because you can't combine zany "Rasputin loves to eat yummy cakes and have the sex and fight" scene and juxtapose it with scenes of people dying in trenches. It's too jarring, and the movie never settles on a coherent framework. Worse, the actos often appear to be in different movies, with some (like Fiennes) playing it mostly straight and other going full Austin Powers.

Regarding the juxtaposition of the cartoonish with the genuinely horrific, there's some of that even in the first movie. When the signal goes out that sends people psychotic, the move focuses on two scenes - one of people starting to wrestle with each other on a beach, and the more high-stakes scene of the mother and her kid who we've been introduced to previously, with the mother having had time to warn her daughter to lock herself in the bathroom. And naturally, after some rising tension, the signal is cut off in the nick of time just before the mother breaks down the door.

But the movie seems to expect us to not extrapolate from that scene to the countless others that must also have been taking place, in which children were not separated from their parents or guardians by a handy locked door, and the horrors that must have then ensued. Either that, or it expects us not to care.