It's an unwritten rule that proper British thesps will get an action lead role in when they can still move around independently, and so with Ralph Fiennes in a prequel to the Kingsman franchise, as an aristocratic spy seeking to get America involved in World War I by exposing the machinations of a terrorist with a serious chip on his shoulder against the British Empire. Not that there's a lot of spying on show, since as ever the director is more inclined to favour cartoonish fights instead. The one where the heroes take on a pirouetting Rasputin is particularly silly, almost as ludicrous as the liberties taken with historical accuracy, with the setting just serving as another resource to be strip-mined by writers short on ideas for characters and events.
Unlike its predecessors in the franchise, this one barely recouped its costs at the box office and one can only hope that will be the end of it, but since churning them out is so untaxing, we probably won't be so lucky.
4/10
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