Written by: David Franzoni
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Clive Owen, Stephen Dillane, Keira Knightley, Ioan Gruffudd, Mads Mikkelsen, Joel Edgerton, Ray Winstone, Ray Stevenson, Stellan Skarsgård
Rating: PG-13
Plot
A grounded take on the legend that dispenses with magic and portrays Arthur as an enigmatic soldier torn between serving his army, Rome, and his home Britain.
Verdict
The biggest mistake may be calling this Arthur. There have been plenty of flops and this version removes a lot of what makes the tale classic. There is no magic, Arthur is merely a soldier, and Merlin is a radical. Change the names and I doubt you'd identify this as the Arthur legend.
This movie has a lot of freedom to reboot Arthur, but doesn't provide him a lot of agency. A few small scenes building his sense of justice could go a long way, but this movie is more concerned with action. This changes the story but feels compelled to include all the named characters for no good reason.
Skip it.
Review
This re-imagines the Arthur legend as a grounded tale about a detachment of warriors. The most prevalent similarity is that this uses the same names. This is from the same writer as Gladiator (2000), and it feels similar. What King Arthur lacks are the big moments and a sense of scale. It never strays too far before giving a nod to its source material, making sure to shoehorn in all the character names. This is often a run of the mill action movie with a medieval setting.
It doesn't really capture King Arthur. This movie could be about any well respected soldier. There's not development or scenes that gives us a sense of who he is. He seems to be a a soldier that follows orders. If you changed the names in this movie, no one would mistake it for the fabled tale.
Arthur is a Roman soldier. These knights were conscripted into war by Rome. Their goal is to finish their service and gain their freedom. They follow Arthur out of respect, and you can infer that upon conscription they weren't a merry band of knights. Upon gaining freedom, they put their lives in peril by choice because they must follow their captain. This movie hinges upon Arthur's knights following him to the ends of the Earth. The movie needed to earn that devotion. I liked the interaction of the knights, and they do feel like family, but it just seems too easy.
There are just too many knights to really develop each one. I like Merlin as a rebel leader living in the woods, though he doesn't play much of a role. Guinevere is a rebel that joins Arthur because we can't have an Arthur movie without her. While the Lancelot betrayal is hinted, nothing comes of it which is a smart move. Implication is all we need. Lancelot and Guinevere share a number of longing glances, but that's it. Arthur marries Guinevere in the end, but there was no foundation for that.
A number of characters comment on Arthur's devotion to the Roman army despite being a native of Britain, questioning his loyalty. I thought the movie would play with that theme. We have Arthur's devotion to his duty and his knights devotion to him. I like the idea of this internal struggle, but it never materializes. The Roman army calls and Arthur answers every time. What is it that causes his knights' blind devotion?
They follow him on a suicide mission that culminates with Arthur and his knights fighting the invading Saxons. We get a fun battle on a frozen lake, though I don't know where they run across a frozen lake when the weather's been quite nice until then, before the big climactic battle at the wall which becomes a jumble of war. With the number of characters you can expect some deaths, but none of them had much impact.
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