Disclaimer: This post discusses the Kingsman movies. There will be spoilers. You are warned.
Some time back, the hubby, sister-in-law, and I went to see The King’s Man. All three of us had enjoyed Kingsman: The Secret Service (K:SS) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (K:GC), so we thought we’d enjoy the prequel.
We didn’t.
After the movie, on the drive home, we talked about it, trying to figure out why we didn’t like it.
It would be easy to blame things like a certain (IMO) needlessly tasteless scene between Rasputin and Oxford
, or a couple of (again, IMO) too-long action sequences, or an (yet again, IMO) unnecessary diversion into the Great War.
Easy, and perhaps accurate – but incomplete.
Once we got home, Hubby and I watched the original Kingsman: The Secret Service. (Our DVD/Blu-Ray collection is … extensive.) And then we watched some of the included extras.
In one of those included extras, one of the creators said something about wanting spy movies to be fun, like some of the earlier James Bond films. Too often, modern spy movies were too serious, even grim.
Hubby and I looked at each other and said, “That’s it!”
Nothing about The King’s Man was fun. Further, there was nothing memorable (in a good way; the things I didn’t like stick out in my memory) about it, either.
Now, a couple of months later, I don’t remember any scenes or lines in The King’s Man that made me smile, let alone laugh out loud. But from K:SS, there are so many things that made me at least smile:
Samuel L. Jackson’s over-the-top performance as Valentine (his stutter and serving a buffet of McDonald’s meals being standout).
Eggsy’s ignorance of his pug dog. (“He’ll get bigger. … Right?”)
Merlin’s gushing over the exploding heads. (“F***ing spectacular!”)
Even in K:GC
, there were bits that made me smile, even laugh – most notably Elton John’s guest appearance.
Were some of these smiles and laughs at dark humor? Of course. But that was the point.
So that’s what we were expecting when we went to see The King’s Man – a story of high thrills and an over-the-top villain wrapped in dark humor.
Instead, we got a dark, even grim, slog through a story with nary a hint of humor in sight. The prequel departed from the tone established by the prior two movies and was therefore much less enjoyable.
As one of us said, “It was a good movie. It just wasn’t a Kingsman movie.”
So here’s the writing lesson in this: If you create a series, stick with the tone you initially decided on. If you can’t continue with it, maybe it’s time to end that series and move on to something else.