The first trailer for Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man was an impressive, if wildly inaccurate, depiction of the First World War, and a veritable rogues gallery combining some of the most legendary criminals and heroes of the era into one high-stakes, epic adventure. It looked fun, a little ridiculous, and charmingly British. So how does the second trailer hold up?
Pretty well. It doesn’t do much to add to what we’ve already seen, and unfortunately there’s no big reveal – no new historical figure waiting to be turned into a ninja super-spy, that is. Even the stinger is just a mildly amusing joke about parachutes. But we do get some tantalizing glimpses of the characters we already know will be in the film.
Rasputin, obviously, is the big bad: he’s seen bewitching or poisoning Alexei Romanov, the Tsarevich of Russia, and battling British agents in the gilded halls of Moscow or Saint Petersburg. As I noted in my review of the first trailer, there’s no mention made of the famed princess Anastasia, but at the rate things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if she turns out to also be a gifted martial-artist, code-breaker or military strategist. Vaughn is not wrong to choose Rasputin as a villain for his movie – Rasputin was a mysterious and frightening force in Russian politics, and his genius, whether mystic or mundane in origin, won him a place in the history books as a master manipulator, and a charismatic religious leader – but he should be cautious when playing so lightly with the very real, very tragic story of the Romanov Dynasty.
We get quick looks at our main characters fighting these historical figures in a variety of different locales – from the snowy streets and balconies of Russia to the streets of Sarajevo, the trenches of the Western Front, the Oval Office, and the manors of merry old England, retrieving ancient, magical artifacts and using high-tech gadgets. Kingsman is a franchise that has always wanted to be Indiana Jones or James Bond for a new generation – and The King’s Man could be the closest they ever get to achieving that. I know I’m excited to see this movie, even if it’s just so I can nitpick and shake my head at the willful distortion of historical events.
So the second trailer might not do much to increase my anticipation, but it doesn’t do anything to change my opinion on the film either, and that’s a good thing at least. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments below!
Trailer Rating: 5/10