← Back to Reviews
in
I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I did not hate this movie. Even more so that it was entertaining. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword suffers from biting off more than it could chew, wanting to establish itself as the first of a planned series of "King Arthur" films. In doing so, the film sacrifices some story elements in favour of 'setting up' future events or characters. For this film to truly work it needed to focus on its own thing.
Arthur watches his family be killed in the sacking of his home. He manages to escape and grows up in the streets as an unknown child. His uncle knows he's alive and is testing every person of age several years later, to try and pull the legendary sword from stone. Arthur does this and ignites a battle between a rebellion wanting a better ruler and their king, wanting more power.
Ritchie throws a modern flashy style to this old-time tale. The result isn't a bad as one would expect. To begin any sort of enjoyment from this movie, I immediately had to disregard it as a serious film. If you do that, you get a lot more out of it. One chase sequence comes to mind as a really well choreographed scene that was suspenseful and entertaining. Yet for every fun sequence like that, we have a rushed and poorly edited one to match. For example, Arthur has to go on this epic quest, which sees him battle against giant bats, wolves, and creatures of the night. This journey is told in a quickly and poorly edited montage. This sequence alone could be an entire movie if it wanted to. King Arthur is so busy wanting to be a fast paced film that it misses key moments in story and character.
The cast doesn't do much to inspire confidence. Jude Law is power hungry, willing to sacrifice his own family for more, but we never truly feel the emotional weight this should carry. Maybe this is due to the little to no screen-time we have with these people, so we don't care enough. Hollywood desperately wants to make Charlie Hunnam a thing. I don't 'not' like him, but he does seem to play the same character in every single movie he does. If anyone can tell me the difference between his Arthur, his Jax Teller and whoever he plays in Pacific Rim, that would be much appreciated.
For all its faults and there are many, I did have a smile on my face while watching this. I looked past the bad CGI character fight sequences that looks like it comes straight out of a video game and enjoyed the inane spectacle this film is. Or maybe my standards of enjoyment have just dropped....could go either way.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
(Guy Ritchie)
(Guy Ritchie)
I'm slightly embarrassed to say that I did not hate this movie. Even more so that it was entertaining. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword suffers from biting off more than it could chew, wanting to establish itself as the first of a planned series of "King Arthur" films. In doing so, the film sacrifices some story elements in favour of 'setting up' future events or characters. For this film to truly work it needed to focus on its own thing.
Arthur watches his family be killed in the sacking of his home. He manages to escape and grows up in the streets as an unknown child. His uncle knows he's alive and is testing every person of age several years later, to try and pull the legendary sword from stone. Arthur does this and ignites a battle between a rebellion wanting a better ruler and their king, wanting more power.
Ritchie throws a modern flashy style to this old-time tale. The result isn't a bad as one would expect. To begin any sort of enjoyment from this movie, I immediately had to disregard it as a serious film. If you do that, you get a lot more out of it. One chase sequence comes to mind as a really well choreographed scene that was suspenseful and entertaining. Yet for every fun sequence like that, we have a rushed and poorly edited one to match. For example, Arthur has to go on this epic quest, which sees him battle against giant bats, wolves, and creatures of the night. This journey is told in a quickly and poorly edited montage. This sequence alone could be an entire movie if it wanted to. King Arthur is so busy wanting to be a fast paced film that it misses key moments in story and character.
The cast doesn't do much to inspire confidence. Jude Law is power hungry, willing to sacrifice his own family for more, but we never truly feel the emotional weight this should carry. Maybe this is due to the little to no screen-time we have with these people, so we don't care enough. Hollywood desperately wants to make Charlie Hunnam a thing. I don't 'not' like him, but he does seem to play the same character in every single movie he does. If anyone can tell me the difference between his Arthur, his Jax Teller and whoever he plays in Pacific Rim, that would be much appreciated.
For all its faults and there are many, I did have a smile on my face while watching this. I looked past the bad CGI character fight sequences that looks like it comes straight out of a video game and enjoyed the inane spectacle this film is. Or maybe my standards of enjoyment have just dropped....could go either way.