King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) - Written Review
Now that's not me just slagging off the movie as an abysmal mess before anyone sees me as biased. Despite not being a huge fan of the idea, or the original trailer last year, I've found the more recent marketing material much more pleasing, and the concept of a Guy Ritchie King Arthur movie didn't, and doesn't sound awful, just a likely recipe for disaster. It's as if Warner Bros needed to make a big, $175 million box office bomb in 2017, and came up with this. Not only that, but they cast no big stars in the film and hired a director whose last film was an even bigger flop than this one. Why did anyone think this would work well?
The story follows Arthur, who as a child was Prince of Camelot under the reign of his father Uther Pendragon. However, an attack by his Uncle Vortigen on the kingdom allowed him to claim the throne, murdering Uther, and allowing a young Arthur to escape to live in a brothel. Years later, Arthur has grown up and enjoys Londinium life with his mini-gang, fighting Vikings and earning large amounts of money. Quite where the money is meant to go is never explained in the film, but when Vortigen uncovers Uther's sword Escalibur, he orders for all men of Arthur's age to try and pull the sword from the stone. Ultimately, Arthur does and becomes embroiled in a quest with the resistance to fight Vortigen and reclaim the throne - not that Arthur is actually interested in being King...
Now, if that seems like an award synopsis, I haven't even mentioned a man/mage conflict, a fight with dark sorcerer Mordred, and the inclusion of a witch under Merlin's guidance who...is never actually named in the film. In fact, while we're here I might as well point out that the actress gets top-billing for playing an unnamed Guenivere, who as far as I'm aware is Arthur's wife in the legends. Merlin isn't actually a character in the film, and there's huge amounts of backstory and lore that are never explained. Those who are unfamiliar with the Arthurian legends will find themselves at a great disadvantage here in a film that can't be bothered to actually explain anything in any great detail.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword has been butchered to within an inch of its life in the editing suite over it's year-and-a-bit of post-production, cutting down essentially a Lord of the Rings-length film into two hours. The horrible edits mean that large sequences in the film entirely consist of montages, with no character growth really achieved nor a full action set-piece. These cut mean that the film is filled with characters sans personality, a lack of real character growth in any characters and a general feeling of clutter and mess throughout.
Oh, and did I mention the fact that the film takes a five minute detour for Arthur to go to a weird magic dimension on a remote island to learn...absolutely nothing? Yeah, that actually happens.
The action sequences, when they are shown in full, are mostly CGI-filled messes with a digital Charlie Hunnam fighting digital soldiers or monsters in fake-looking environments. When actual fighting or action is present in the film, it's pretty good - but most of it relies on poor slow-motion and over-complicated camerawork that just makes the whole thing look like a video game - and a poor one at that. The production values are mixed, with some top-notch CGI mixed with poorly-realized visual effects, some weak CG environments mixed with good location work, and a strong production design that creates the Medieval setting very well.
Charlie Hunnam is the only actor who gets anything to work with in this film and fills the role of Arthur adequately, although his performance is so passable I doubt anyone will remember him in the role. Djimon Honsou, Astrid Berges-Frisbey and Eric Bana are...fine in their non-existent roles, and poor Jude Law delivers a brilliant performance of a non-threatening villain. Katie McGrath cameos in the film, just to confuse matters further, as Vortigen's wife - but anyone who remembers BBC's Merlin will be instantly baffled by her presence. David Beckham is in the film for a small cameo role, yet he manages to get more out of it than any of the professional actors.
The only real standout here is Daniel Pemberton's score, which combines Hans Zimmer-esque themes with songs and unique sounds to create a truly fantastic score. Some may find it annoying or bizarre, but Pemberton's clearly put a lot of work into this and it helps to keep the energy up in places. It's great work wasted on a rather weak film.
Overall, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is not without merit, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many aspects of the film that are without fault. It may be enjoyable to some, but there's not much to the action sequences, the humour lands flat on its face and the whole thing will pass you by before you've even registered the fact that this was meant to be an actual film series. It's far from dire, but it's a poor start to a non-existent franchise. Guy Ritchie's done good work with the Sherlock Holmes films, but this combined with The Man From UNCLE will not go down as successes on his CV. 4/10
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