Arthur, having escaped the fall of Camelot and the death of his parents, is raised on the streets of London. But when his father's sword appears in a stone, the new ruler Vortigern is bringing men to the site to pull the sword free, including Arthur. When he does pull the sword free, he has to face his destiny...
It didn't take long, around five minutes into the film I think. It was when the giant elephants appeared during the opening battle. That's when I knew. That's when I knew this was certainly a different take on King Arthur.
But being different doesn't mean bad, however the question is, does it work? Well...
Let's get this out the way right now. There are many, many things wrong with this film. The script from Guy Ritchie, Joby Harold and Lionel Wigram, from a story by Joby Harold and David Dobkin, tries to take Richie's 'guns 'n geezers' approach from the likes of his earlier films, Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch. But while it worked with those films, it really doesn't work here, instead coming over as simply silly.
The story takes far too long to get going, while also at the same time rushing through Arthur's early years growing up. It's a strange contradiction to be sure. It's not until the sword is pulled that the film starts to really get going, but even so there are still issues.
Despite the CGI infused backdrop, this is a smaller scale film that perhaps you may think. With the exception of the opening battle, none of the others match the scale of that one. The final confrontation between Vortigern and Arthur looks like the final battle from a computer game.
The middle section of the film, where other characters are introduced and the film settles down for a bit, is probably the best part of the film, as Arthur struggles with his destiny. It's also in indication of perhaps what is the biggest problem the film has. Tonally, and story-wise it is all over the place at times.
And that is a shame, as if you dig deep into the film, there was, potentially, a much better film in there. Strip out the CGI and some of the story ideas are interesting. As well as Arthur wrestling with his destiny, Vortigern's story, of torn between his ambition and the personal sacrifice he will have to make to fulfil it has some moments that if better written could have made more of an emotional impact.
But this film is meant to be an epic, apparently the first of a series of film. As a result, it wants to be a Lord Of The Rings or a Warcraft scale of film. But being the first, it didn't need that, it could have built up to the epic battles if need be, but for a part one it is trying too hard and never really works on any level.
It's not really the cast's fault. Charlie Hunnam isn't bad as Arthur, Jude Law is a good villain, The supporting cast, including Eric Bana, Aidan Gillen, Djimon Hounsou, Neil Maskell and Kingsley Ben-Adir are pretty good. Astrid Berges-Frisbey plays a character called 'The Mage' (there's no Merlin in this film) and she does well with what is a poorly written role, which brings up another fault in the film; the lack of female characters. Arthur is raised in a brothel but none of the woman there are memorable, there's no Guinevere, the only other woman of interest in the film, Maggie, played by Annabelle Wallis, a leader of the people, is basically a cameo.
The film does look good, being well shot by John Mathieson and the score from Daniel Pemberton is pretty good. The CGI, while overdone, is impressive at times, even if the film does come close to looking like a fantasy game (such as the ending).
If this had been a completely new fantasy film, say a Dungeon & Dragons film, or something else, then I think it might have worked better. But the fantasy elements in this tale of Arthur feel out of place. In some ways it reminded me of one of the issues with the recent film 47 Ronin. That film took an actual story and added fantasy elements. However if you had stripped out the fantasy aspects that film would still work. Here, I'm not sure it would have saved it.
It's not a complete disaster by any means. But it is not that good a film. One of my film guilty pleasures is Hawk The Slayer. It's a not good low budget fantasy film, but I love it. King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword is a not good, big budget fantasy film. But unlike Hawk The Slayer, it's not a film I will likely revisit anytime soon.
Disappointing.
Rating - 2/5
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