King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Let's be clear: this contains very few aspects of the actual Arthur legend. They probably should have just gone for a wacky original medieval fantasy film instead. That being said, I didn't expect Ritchie's style to work this well here. And he hasn't been this crazy since Snatch. Some montages are so breathless, fast and innovative as far as editing and soundtrack go, it's a pleasure. Sure, the plot follows the genre conventions more or less, and the finale is a bit heavy on CGI. On the other hand the assassination attempt sequence is fantastic and the portrayal of magic pretty cool. Hell, I had fun with this.

Will keep it short and simple. If you don't get/understand the (British) humour (i.e you don't think the jokes are funny), dialogue and fast "flashbacky" editing style presented in Lock Stock and Snatch, you will hate this movie. Easy as that. For us who understand what constitutes a Ritchie movie will be more likely than not, like the movie.

I believe this movie would have been a master piece of a series due to the huge amount of event packed into 2 hours, but this is no criticism on how great the movie is and how the numbers of this site doesn't do it justice. 90% of the negative reviews comes under the lame excuse of "that's not how king Arthur is supposed to be". If you actually want a movie where you know everything already starting from the story, characters and twists then I'd call you the stupidest ever. Yes this isn't your typical king Arthur movie, and that adds even more to the awesomeness of it.amnt saying the movie is flawless, no movie is, but it was great starting from acting, animation, story, music tracks, everything. Again would have been better off it was a series and I hope there would be a sequel including the knights of the round table, sure Lancelot and some dramatic betrayal or even Arthur's betrayal himself to the kingdom.

The elephant in the room is... well, there are lots of elephants in the room; let's be honest.

Before I expound further, let me say this: if you like the movie's trailers, like a fair bit of action but don't particularly care about how every bit of it fits into a story, don't particularly care about the traditional legend(s) of King Arthur, like a bunch of fantasy mixed in, and plenty of (now run-of-the-mill) CGI, you might like this movie. Reading further may unnecessarily dissuade you from watching it.

Of course, if you've seen the trailers, you know that there really are (ridiculously large, CGI) elephants in the film. The other, proverbial, elephants in the room are how far the movie strays from the legendary King Arthur story.

Now, in fairness, legends (King Arthur, in this case) being what they are, it is difficult to know where reality ends and fantasy begins. Nonetheless, even though the legend has changed somewhat over the years (as legends are wont to do), this movie bears little resemblance to the story that moviegoers familiar with Arthur will expect.

Merlin? Rendered unimportant and replaced by a (gender-PC?) beautiful female mage, who remains nameless. (I suppose the lack of a name was supposed to lend some air of irresistible mystery to her. It failed, miserably.) (sigh)

Bedivere, the handsomest of Arthur's knights (almost in the entire land), one-handed, he of the muscular build? Well, at least he had the build. Some, including Bedivere, were obviously cast in a fit of PC multiculturalism. Please. Save it for where it makes sense.

Guinevere? Lancelot? Missing. David Beckham managed to land a spot, though. Go figure.

I read Ritchie's bio here on IMDb. It's stated there that Ritchie thought film school graduates made "boring and unwatchable" films. His disdain for the work of others seems to go beyond those who've studied film art. Huh. That doesn't stop Ritchie from leaning on the creations of others to sell a flick.

Ritchie has a flashy -- often manic -- presentation style. I'll give him some benefit of doubt in presuming that he does so in an effort to create a sense of action. Unfortunately, it often serves more to make stories incoherent.

In watching Richie's Sherlock Holmes re-imaginings, I couldn't shake a feeling of Ritchie's lack of respect for Doyles' Holmes. I get the same sense of lack of respect for traditional tales of King Arthur.

I could go on and on, picking the film apart, but all of it boils down to the simple appearance that Ritchie is simply capitalizing on the popularity of someone else' story -- King Arthur and the legend of Excalibur -- by using the name in the title, then remaking the entire story to suit a flight of his fancy.

Ritchie might as well have just left the sword out of the story and dropped the name of Arthur from the story -- and title. Then he could have gone anywhere he wanted with the story without disappointing moviegoers drawn in by the title. It might have stood on its own as a fair (by no means great) action/fantasy film. As a retelling of the King Arthur legend, it is a disappointment.

On second thought, considering Richie sold the idea to the movie studio as King-Arthur-meets-The-Lord-of-the-Rings, perhaps he should have just named the movie accordingly. Then the Tolkien influence (and the use of Tolkien's oliphants) would make much more sense. Then, too, moviegoers would know better than to expect a movie simply about the King Arthur legend, which the current title implies.

The biggest problem with #KingArthur #LegendOfTheSword is that it puts more emphasis on trying to be a Guy Ritchie superhero film than it is about King Arthur. I understand that mythically, Arthur's sword supposedly bears powers of its own, but this films makes its effects work the same way spinach boosts Popeye's strength. Another problem is that instead of watching a movie, some of the time it feels more like you're watching "Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor" video game walkthrough.

Charlie Hunnam stars as the born king, Arthur whose father is murdered as Arthur's uncle, Vortigern (Jude Law) seizes the crown. The film traces Arthur's journey from the brothel life all the way to the throne. Robbed of his birthright, Arthur pulls the sword from the stone and finds himself become the king's threat number one.

At the very least, "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" does have a clear story, so this is not as messy or as incoherent as a Zack Snyder presentation by any stretch of the imagination. And if you're a die hard Guy Ritchie fan, this too carries his usual brute montage style that often explains a subplot in a very quick, very humorous manner, so in that sense, it is a more dynamic film than any of the other versions of King Arthur you've seen on the screen.

Charlie Hunnam essentially plays a reluctant hero who's having difficulties coming to terms with his destiny but after a while, his continued reluctance becomes frustrating and downright annoying. Not to mention the fact that for whatever reason, this film is so obsessed with wasting time on VFX hallucinations and pointless creatures, there really is no good reason why this film's runtime has to be 126 minutes long. And the supporting characters aren't well-developed either which is why you'd get easily stoked at David Beckham's easily spotted cameo. Jude Law is probably this film's only redeeming quality, as the villain, Law is as incredible and reliable as he's ever been which makes his character, Vortigern, a formidable foe. Overall, I'm not saying that "King Arthur: Legend of The Sword" is not an entertaining film if you're a style-over-substance kind of an audience, but just be aware that you'll be viewing Arthur through Guy Ritchie's filters.