King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword

Year: 2017
Genre: Action
Directed: Guy Ritchie
Stars: Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, Aiden Gillen, Freddie Fox, Craig McGinlay, Tom Wu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Neil Maskell, Annabelle Wallis, Geoff Bell, Rob Knighton
Production: Warner Bros.

Did we really need another King Arthur movie? The legend, its various symbols, its thematic arcs, its outmoded characters etc. have all existed in some permutation seemingly since the beginning of film history. The last good adaptation, if we're being honest, was the half-forgotten Disney film of the 1960's. That is unless of course you include Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) as the quintessential movie about wielding executive power based on watery tarts throwing swords.

I do!

Yet here we are in the time of extended universes and increasingly self-serious fandom adaptations, getting director Guy Ritchie of all people to cash in on everyone's fascination with The Game of Thrones (2011-Present) series. Though for what it's worth Ritchie seems to know that he's an unexpected choice to helm this project and admirably leans into some of the flourishes that made him a household name a decade ago. Let it be known that for all its faults, you can pile on "idiosyncratic" onto the list of adjectives used to describe this movie.

You can also add on words like, busy, rushed, light on suspense and predictable even for a King Arthur movie. Which is surprising since the setup for the film strips away many of the modes of the original legend and replaces them with worldly complications and post-modern, Dark Souls-like ornamentation. It all starts with a blood feud between Uther (Bana) the rightful King of England and his brother Vortigern (Law) who's ability to conjure dark magic gives him the leverage to take on the throne. Arthur (Hunnam) as a small child is sent down a river Moses-style, finding refuge in a London-town brothel. From there he becomes a small town hooligan with a heart of gold, graduates to being a professional magic sword puller and the rest you largely know. This time instead of getting much needed guidance from Merlin (a figure spoken of, but never seen), Arthur gets his X-Men meets Lord of the Rings tutelage from a flinty mage (Berges-Frisbey) whose involvement is probably to distract that so many named women in this movie are tossed aside and/or killed.

Please do more crime-comedies!

The film works best when it focuses on the grimy and the gritty. This Arthur is less a product of posh, natural charisma and more an intelligent rascal whose intimate knowledge of the criminal underworld pumps the gas on an already fomenting revolution. The context of the small and unnamed is a small but interesting feature that should have been explored a lot more. If for no other reason than it would have given Guy Ritchie a better opportunity to indulge in his speed-up-speed-down, MTV era ingenuity and hypothetical-hyper-planned monologuing.

If only the film didn't yank us through an ugly hodge-podge of boring exposition, suspiciously convenient, magic-themed psycho-babble and erratic franchise maintenance that does little in the service of the film's characters. In this version, the sword Excalibur is not just mythical, it's downright diabolical with its ability to grant the wielder super-human strength, speed and dexterity. Arthur for what its worth already possess many of those traits but he can't hold the sword double-handed because, according to the Bedivere (Hounsou), "he's not ready for it." Convenient, now the movie can milk its nebulously constructed cudgel for the purposes of dragging out the run time.

Does someone actually remember this movie?

That's ultimately what all but kills this movie - it's a drag. And not the kind of drag that made Antoine Fuqua's 2004 version such a grounded but trifling diversion. No this thing, with its liberal amounts of magic, monsters and kung fu (I kid you not, this King of England knows kung fu), wants you to take everything as seriously as a stroke. Thus we get long moments of people blathering about this or that prophecy and staring at each other with suspicion and malice. A task that someone like Jude Law is naturally suited to but Charlie Hunnam? The less he talks the better.

The film's remaining questions, combined with a naively buoyant epilogue hints that more is to come. It is rumored that The Legend of the Sword is one of a planned six movies - Six! Why would they do that? They hardly captured anyone's imagination, let alone attention with this mess. Even with the promise of Merlin and Lancelot joining the fray, this franchise feels like its only going to get worse. I kindly ask Warner Bros. not to continue on this quest for Camelot. Let's not go there - it is a silly place.

Final Grade: D+