 Couple early thoughts I had during my watch of The Kingsman. One, I cannot believe this is directed by Matthew Vaughn. It doesn't look very good. It certainly doesn't have the same spice he was known for from the previous two Kingsman films. Two, what the hell is happening in this movie? I am not following the plot at all. Three, why? Just why was this movie made? Here's where I stand with this franchise. The first movie, love it. I think it's great. It's kind of like a modern James Bond spy thriller with crazy gadgets, insane villains, and cool protagonists. They have style. They have substance. The visuals are insane. The second movie, Little Two Spy Kids for me, it's not bad. It's still very watchable, it's entertaining, but a step down from the first one. It goes a little too overboard with the antics. This film, hated, full-blown, did not like, had to stop it about an hour in and did not want to continue, but the review had to happen, damn it. So I pushed on. I was going to go on IMDb and look up the plot synopsis, but that would be disingenuous. I want to be honest here. I have no freaking idea what's happening in this film. It takes place in the 20th century. It's a prequel, so I was already very hesitant going in. Prequels typically are pretty bad. Um, and I don't know much more than that. It follows the Oxford family. It was very predictable. I called two things. I was actually impressed with myself, unless so about the pathetic script. I'm waffling on spoilers, but I'm not going to. I won't spoil anything. I will just say this. There's a death early on that's incredibly predictable, called it right out of the gates. It's typically pretty easy to call a death of a character when they just get done giving some sage advice. It's like, okay, you're gone. You're dead. Next scene. And the other thing I called, I thought was also very predictable, the villain and who he was because they present this guy in the shadows the entire time. I don't know why it's not interesting. We don't see the face of the sinister guy behind the curtain, who's pulling all the strings and causing these brothers or cousins or relatives. I don't actually know what they were. They're the heads of different countries, and he makes them go to war against each other. He costs his chaos. But right away, I'm like, I know who that is. That's this dude. It's obviously this dude. And it was. Again, patting my own back aside, I didn't get anything out of that reveal. It wasn't entertaining. It wasn't like jaw dropping in the slightest. Our Cullen Firth isn't back. Our Eggsy isn't back. We don't even have a Channing Tatum here. We don't have a Che Tate to carry this thing. Instead, we have freaking Voldemort. Ralph Fiennes. Ralph Fiennes. He's doing it. He seems very uninterested for most of the movie. He's lacking the substance and the style and the coolness that Cullen Firth brought to the table. The new guy? Eggsy 2.0? So bland. He's so boring. He's just like a stock character. An AI built computer character they just dropped in. Like, I am New Kingsman. I am fighting. Action's another thing that Matthew Vaughn was known for. It's here. Some of it's cool. There's one fight in particular that's very engaging against Rasputin. But oh my god, the events leading up to that fight are atrocious. I honestly don't know what the fuck I was watching. I was uncomfortable and not in a good way. Not in like a mid-summer way. This was uncomfortable and like, what is Matthew Vaughn into in his free time? I don't recall signing up to watch a disgusting older man lick the wounds of another gentleman's thigh before throwing up a cookie. I just don't recall checking that box on the Kingsman, but that's what I got. Now, I do appreciate Matthew Vaughn when it comes to the choreographed fights and some of the stylistic shots he brings to the table, but here is like the worst of it all. Some of the camera shots, some of the zoom-ins, they were just really campy, really hacky. And that's why I thought there's no way Matthew Vaughn directed this. This is the guy trying to do Matthew Vaughn. And no, it's him. It was him and I was shell shocked. That reveal was a lot more shocking than who the villain was. There's a cute British actress, kind of a Mary Poppins that kills. She doesn't really do much though. There's kind of this reg tag Kingsman crew that they bring up. They just don't have a lot to offer though. It's a shame. It really is kind of Voldemort going around kicking ass and then his son takes lead for a while and then back to Voldy again. The story is really at odds with itself, constantly pushing and pulling between is this a spy thriller? Is it a, is it a war film? Is it a movie about a father and son trying to reconnect? Who's the protagonist here? It's just a really tough film to watch. The badass score is gone. The cool villains, they tried, but they're not cool. They're creepy and weird and most of them are throwaway. The gadgets? Eh, not really. No, not really. At first I thought, you know what, Disney's being kind of douchey. They own Fox now and this is one of the films they rebranded under their new 20th century label. They're just shitting this out unceremoniously into theaters for a week or two and then they're going to pretend like it didn't happen. I get now why they did. There's nothing to promote here. This isn't a fun movie. It's not a pleasant one to watch. It's just miserable. It's a shame. Who wanted a prequel? What's even more perplexing? Is the entire building of the Kingsman doesn't happen until like the last two minutes of the film. They're like, hey, we're the Kingsmen now. Movie's over. I thought maybe it was going to be more like Matthew Vaughn's other movie, X-Men First Class, where we see Erik and Charles start to build up the school for the gifted mutants and decide which way they should take it. Anyway, I'm only reviewing this now because it showed up on HBO Max and my feed and I thought, okay, well, it's here. I'm paying for the service. Now I might as well see what this movie's all about. And I honestly went in assuming it was going to be at least a somewhat enjoyable film. No, it was just bad. Let me know what you thought, though, about the Kingsmen. Like the video if you agree and had a good time. Join me here if you want. Subscribe to the channel. I post movie content constantly. And please hit the notification bell so they show up right in your feed. And hopefully I'll see you next time. Since you stuck around, you must be a loyal viewer or you just went to use the bathroom and your phone's playing in the background, which is awkward because I'm talking to no one. But either way, I'm going to say this. Please think about joining me on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies or become a member right here on YouTube via the Join button. There's exclusive videos. You get a lot of different perks. I'm really pumping that up now. And I would love to have you. It would mean a lot to me. It's just another way for me to keep pumping out content and grow the channel, keep this hobby alive.