King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
(C- or 1.5/4 stars)
What a mess. Though there are flashes of brilliance throughout, most of 'King Arthur: Legend of the Sword' - directed kinetically & frenetically by Guy Ritchie - made me cringe or drowsy; depending on the moment. It's simply a hyper-stylized, incoherent, violent take on the story of England's legendary king & the mythology surrounding his magic sword, Excalibur. My advice: watch the 1981 version (John Boorman's cult classic, Excalibur) instead. But I digress. The action begins with Arthur as a child. His father, King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) rules Camelot & takes down an invasion force led by the dreaded mage Mordred; this scene includes enormous elephants that, while unrealistic, looked awesome & got me excited for the rest of the film.
Uther Pendragon vanquishes the 'danger' from outside forces, but that doesn't protect him from the malice within as his treacherous younger brother, Vortigern (Jude Law), orchestrates a bloody coup that leaves Uther & his beautiful wife slain {not to mention sacrificing his own wife to Dark Forces}. Though Vortigern seizes the crown, Arthur is smuggled out in a basket downriver {Moses, much?}, & becomes an orphan in Londinium; where he is raised by some kindly prostitutes in a city brothel. Some 20 yrs. later, Arthur (now hunky Charlie Hunnam, already in this yr.'s Lost City of Z) - now a formidable street fighter - is brought back to Camelot like all males of his age, to see if he can pull the famous sword Excalibur from a stone -- a test instituted by the tyrannical Vortigern to locate his lost nephew.
When Arthur indeed pulls it out {encouraged by a character played by David Beckham}, he is - of course - imprisoned & set for execution. However, killing the rightful king jussssst might be tricky. Helped by the mage Guinevere (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), the knight Sir Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou), & the small-fingered Goosefat Bill (Aidan Gillen, from Game of Thrones), Arthur escapes & joins a group resolute in removing Vortigern from power ... but that might entail some magic.
This film was intended to be part 1 of a franchise, but with a $175 million budget & disappointing box office results, methinks that won't be happening. Guy Ritchie, working from a fairly unintelligible script (which he also co-wrote) opts for style over substance; relying on whizz bang editing, a relentless pace-followed by dead patches, exposition-heavy intervals, pulsating rock music & a plethora of cruddy CG effects to hide what's actually a pretty piss-poor movie. It's a shame because despite my issues with it, it has its moments. I mentioned the elephants earlier. There's a sequence involving hybrid human/snake-like creatures in a dungeon that is wonderfully creepy. Some of the action is well done. Charlie Hunnam mixes self-deprecating wit with a Brad Pitt-like physicality -- but he's not a commanding Arthur. Jude Law is a loathsome villain; what he does to his wife & daughter is horrid. And who doesn't love watchin' a rip-roaring medieval story on the big screen?
But despite the talented cast, crew (nice cinematography, suitably dingy castles, costumes), & the legendary subject matter ... the whole thing was just a mess. I blame Ritchie's ADD directorial style {which somehow worked for his Sherlock Holmes flicks} & the indecipherable script. This is one of those movies where: as written on paper, the script/story makes sense, but in ACTUALITY, everything is slapdash, nonsensical & irksome. Combine the script with those aforementioned quick edits, frantic dialogue & atrocious CGI (particularly in the big, overblown video game-like climax), and you've got a bit of a stinker on your hands.
Uther Pendragon vanquishes the 'danger' from outside forces, but that doesn't protect him from the malice within as his treacherous younger brother, Vortigern (Jude Law), orchestrates a bloody coup that leaves Uther & his beautiful wife slain {not to mention sacrificing his own wife to Dark Forces}. Though Vortigern seizes the crown, Arthur is smuggled out in a basket downriver {Moses, much?}, & becomes an orphan in Londinium; where he is raised by some kindly prostitutes in a city brothel. Some 20 yrs. later, Arthur (now hunky Charlie Hunnam, already in this yr.'s Lost City of Z) - now a formidable street fighter - is brought back to Camelot like all males of his age, to see if he can pull the famous sword Excalibur from a stone -- a test instituted by the tyrannical Vortigern to locate his lost nephew.
When Arthur indeed pulls it out {encouraged by a character played by David Beckham}, he is - of course - imprisoned & set for execution. However, killing the rightful king jussssst might be tricky. Helped by the mage Guinevere (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), the knight Sir Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou), & the small-fingered Goosefat Bill (Aidan Gillen, from Game of Thrones), Arthur escapes & joins a group resolute in removing Vortigern from power ... but that might entail some magic.
This film was intended to be part 1 of a franchise, but with a $175 million budget & disappointing box office results, methinks that won't be happening. Guy Ritchie, working from a fairly unintelligible script (which he also co-wrote) opts for style over substance; relying on whizz bang editing, a relentless pace-followed by dead patches, exposition-heavy intervals, pulsating rock music & a plethora of cruddy CG effects to hide what's actually a pretty piss-poor movie. It's a shame because despite my issues with it, it has its moments. I mentioned the elephants earlier. There's a sequence involving hybrid human/snake-like creatures in a dungeon that is wonderfully creepy. Some of the action is well done. Charlie Hunnam mixes self-deprecating wit with a Brad Pitt-like physicality -- but he's not a commanding Arthur. Jude Law is a loathsome villain; what he does to his wife & daughter is horrid. And who doesn't love watchin' a rip-roaring medieval story on the big screen?
But despite the talented cast, crew (nice cinematography, suitably dingy castles, costumes), & the legendary subject matter ... the whole thing was just a mess. I blame Ritchie's ADD directorial style {which somehow worked for his Sherlock Holmes flicks} & the indecipherable script. This is one of those movies where: as written on paper, the script/story makes sense, but in ACTUALITY, everything is slapdash, nonsensical & irksome. Combine the script with those aforementioned quick edits, frantic dialogue & atrocious CGI (particularly in the big, overblown video game-like climax), and you've got a bit of a stinker on your hands.