Guy Ritchie (Snatch., Sherlock Holmes, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)
Starring:
Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak), Jude Law (The Young Pope, The Holiday, Sherlock Holmes), Djimon Hounsou (Guardians of the Galaxy, Blood Diamond, Furious 7)
Genre:
Fantasy / Action
Opinion:
A scarred and grizzled Arthur Pendragon (Charlie Hunnam)
slowly makes his way up a crumbled cliff-edge.
His gritted teeth grinding on each other as his feet grind on the rock
beneath them, his fingers gripping into cutting-slate and he is nearing
exhaustion.
However when he reaches the
summit, he stands tall and proud as he sees his goal ahead of him.
Shiny, silver and stuck in an enormous boulder...Excalibur.
Evil’s bane. The
sword of legend. Everything he’s
searched for.
When suddenly…
“You wanna get your hands round the handle!”
….Sorry? Who said
that?
“Ten digits round the hilt. And pull it!”
Is that?… is that David Beckham? With a dash of mud on him, and a false nose
trying to hide his identity?
“Left foot, right foot, back on the boat!”Sigh, yep. That’s GQ's Man of the Year 2013, David Beckham telling the hero of this epic how to pull a sword out of a stone. And just like that, my immersion is broken and now I'm paying attention to the slick-haired free-kick specialist instead of our eponymous hero.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword tells the story of the titular Arthur, orphaned at a young age and raised in a brothel, after his uncle Vortigen (Jude Law) steals the throne from his father and makes himself ruler of medieval Britain. When Vortigen attempts to find a man to pull the infamous Excalibur from a boulder, a manhunt begins for Arthur as he plots to overthrow his deranged uncle.
SInce the plot has adopted a more family-centric plot, and done away with the 'rags-to-riches' formula that other Arthur films have done, it's no surprise that the film attempts to steal some style
from Game of Thrones, combining fantasy elements with it’s
medieval setting.
But that imitation is this film’s main problem; as the film frequently dips it’s toe into the
fantasy world, but is then being dragged back into a grim and Cockney-Gangster London and the two just do not mix.
Now don’t get me wrong; Guy Ritchie can write and direct
some damn fine Cockney-Gangster films when he wants. Both Sherlock Holmes films, as well as Snatch. and Lock, Stock... manage to combine action
seamlessly with a pithy kind of cocky-wit.
East-End gangsters engage in bare-knuckle boxing matches and then discuss the differences in the colour of caravans, all whilst keeping the viewers eyes glued to the screen and ears primed for more amazing one-liners.
East-End gangsters engage in bare-knuckle boxing matches and then discuss the differences in the colour of caravans, all whilst keeping the viewers eyes glued to the screen and ears primed for more amazing one-liners.
And this is the path that King Arthur should have travelled.
The King Arthur legend has been told time and time again but always relying on the standard clichés of the Sword in the Stone, Merlin, the Lady In The Lake etc. The fantasy elements always creep in and no-one had tried to ground the story in realism. However the same thing could be have been said for Sherlock Holmes before Ritchie and Downey Jr. created an eccentric and foppish version for their 2011 version. Holmes always manages to disprove all the fantastical elements of his villains by showing the science behind them and that was what made interesting viewing.
The King Arthur legend has been told time and time again but always relying on the standard clichés of the Sword in the Stone, Merlin, the Lady In The Lake etc. The fantasy elements always creep in and no-one had tried to ground the story in realism. However the same thing could be have been said for Sherlock Holmes before Ritchie and Downey Jr. created an eccentric and foppish version for their 2011 version. Holmes always manages to disprove all the fantastical elements of his villains by showing the science behind them and that was what made interesting viewing.
Instead, Ritchie mixes RocknRolla and Fantastic Beasts, creating a rather bizarre world where he doe not fit. One sequence features Arthur visiting a random island in
the middle of a lake (I’m assuming near London) to battle gigantic snakes and
spiders to train for battle against Vortigen.
It’s ludicrous.
Rating:
3/10 - Wait until a drunken Saturday night with Netflix.
Until next time folks, thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed what you read,
If you enjoyed what you read,
'Like' me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Dunn-Reviews
or 'Follow' me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MikeDunnReviews
