Film Review: The King's Man plays fast and loose with history

"Ralph Fiennes is full value as the noble duke who gradually comes to accept that pacifism is a luxury the civilised world can’t afford"

Rhys Ifans as Rasputin (carrying) Alexander Shefler as Tsaravich Alexei, Tom Hollander as Tsar Nicholas (left back to camera), Branka Katic as Tsarina Alix (right back to camera) in The King's Man

★★★★☆ 

A prequel to the offbeat Kingsmen spy movies, The King’s Man (15A) opens in South Africa during the Boer War, with Orlando, the Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) so disgusted by British concentration camps that he swears a vow to protect his young son Conrad from the horrors of war.