Written by: Joby Harold and Guy Ritchie & Lionel Wigram (screenplay), David Dobkin and Joby Harold (story by)
Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, Aidan Gillen
Rated: PG-13
Plot
Robbed of his birthright, Arthur lives in the back alleys of the city unaware of his true identity. Once he pulls the sword from the stone, he is forced to acknowledge his true legacy.
Verdict
With Guy Ritchie at the helm I was hoping for King Arthur meets Snatch (2000) or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). I wanted intriguing characters and sharp dialog. This is more of Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) medieval style with a focus on spectacle. This isn't far from a CGI demo reel as it tries to create a dark and rebellious mythology for King Arthur.
Hunnam doesn't do a bad job with the new approach to Arthur, but the character isn't written to make him all that compelling.
It depends.
Review
As the budget for Ritchie's movies have grown so has the reliance on CGI. It's easy to see he's a solid film maker, but a script makes or breaks a movie and I prefer his lower budget character driven movies. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) is a spy movie that forsakes story for visuals, much like King Arthur. This Arthur is more of a rock star, a role where Hunnam's type casting as motorcycle gang leader Jax Teller from Sons of Anarchy is a better fit than his period piece movie about explorer Percy Sullivan The Lost City of Z (2016). It's a movie that is beleaguered by the story more than Hunnam's acting.
The first few scenes let you know exactly what this is. It's over the top. While it lacks heart, it has plenty of flash. This is crazy just for the sake that it can be. We get a few fast paced dialog sequences that have become hallmarks of Ritchie's movies, but so much of the drama or intrigue in the story is manufactured out of nothing. We are frequently presented with a situation, like Jude Law killing his wife, with no immediate explanation as to why. I assumed blood magic, and that's close to the answer. She was a sacrifice. A few times the movie prolongs an easily answered question and it's annoying. There isn't a lot of story despite the source material. This does revise mages as quite dark and disturbing. We don't get Merlin which seems strange in a King Arthur story.
Arthur is a skilled fighter and brothel owner, valuable skills if he's to be king. He's happy and ignorant, saving money for a reason I don't think we ever discover. Arthur's uncle Vortigern (Jude Law) stole the throne.
Much of the story is Arthur needing to confront his past, which is the night Vortigern stole the throne. We see this same scene played over and over and over. Arthur finally gets a revelation out of the scene, but it's a fact I knew from the first time we saw that scene. Arthur's inability to wield Excalibur is his failure to reconcile his past, but he didn't even know the true ramifications of the event where he had to flee the castle as a child and abandon his heritage. His traumatic childhood only seems to affect his sword wielding capabilities in respect to Excalibur. He's flourished as low life in the town of Londinium.
From what I remember about the stories, Arthur the good and just character battled the evil sorcerer Mordred. In this movie, the villain is his uncle. Mordred is dispatched early on by Uther, Arthur's father.
The producers hoped Guy Ritchie would do for this what he did for Sherlock Holmes, create a franchise. This was originally planned to be the first of six movies, though the deficit in box office earnings against the movie's budget doesn't indicate we'll see more.
There is still a lot of story to mine as we only got the briefest of introductions to the knights of the round table with the final scenes introducing a few of the future knights as they wonder why Arthur is building a large round table.
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