*Minor Spoilers Ahead* The movie beings at the start of a big battle. The Mage army is smashing through King Uther's defences. Uther (Eric Bana) decides to take the battle into his own hands, despite his brother Vortigern's (Jude Law) reservations. Uther jumps onto the leading war elephant and slays the Mage king, ending the battle. After the battle, there are conflicting arguments on how to deal with the fallout. Previously the feuding kingdoms lived in harmony so some of Uther's generals: Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou) and Bill (Aidan Gillen) want to seek peace while Vortigern proposes hunting down the Mages and killing them. Uther agrees that a temporary peace should be reached and while some leave the meeting happy, others are angry and will not back down. Uther senses this and packs up his wife and his son Arthur (later played by Charlie Hunnam) to leave the castle at night.
If you've looked at the reviews for this movie, they're really scathing. I would never argue that this movie is a complete success but critics have been too quick to slam this movie. There's some really good stuff in here. I tend to like most of Guy Ritchie's movies and one of the biggest reasons is that his characters have tons of camaraderie. This is often helped by some stellar dialogue too. They make you laugh but it also helps you believe in the relationships between the characters. That was the strongest part of King Arthur for me. My favourite scenes weren't the big action set pieces, they were the parts where Arthur and his crew were taking care of business in Londinium or sabotaging the villain's operation. Other than the occasional slip up with modern day phrasing (I don't think anyone said razzle-dazzle in the medieval ages?) it reminded me of Jason Statham's dialogue in Snatch. It was generally solid and I laughed throughout the movie.
Guy Ritchie has been at this long enough that he's developed his own way doing action. In some of his projects it works great (Sherlock Holmes has some really great action scenes) and in other projects it doesn't. I thought the actions scenes in Legend of the Sword were good in some areas and they weren't so great in others. I saw this with a friend and she said the action reminded her of video games. She's not wrong. When Arthur uses Excalibur, its like unlocking a special ability in a video game. The CGI is decent (it better be with a $175 million budget) but the movie also can't seem to decide how far into fantasy it wants to go. So the action is a mixed bag, the ending goes too crazy but it didn't affect the overall grade too much.
The acting is also pretty mixed. I actually really liked Charlie Hunnam as Arthur. He's had a tough road transitioning to movies but he had the charisma and the right physicality to pull this role off. I also really liked some of the actors in supporting parts: Aiden Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, Neil Maskell and Kingsley Ben-Adir are all respectively funny and they were believable as a crew. Getting into some of the performances I didn't like as much, I don't want to blame Jude Law because he was trying but Vortigern was a lacklustre character for me. I also thought Astrid Bergès-Frisbey was weak. Her character seemed like something that could have been cut out and she was really wooden as The Mage.
This movie reminds me of 2 other Warner Bros. releases from last year that had a mixed measure of success; The Legend of Tarzan and Suicide Squad. Both of those movie were completely trashed by critics and were flawed products. But they also had some really cool parts and strong aspects that people just threw aside when judging the movie. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword falls into that category for me. The action is mixed, the acting is mixed and the story takes some pretty big liberties from the King Arthur legend and the historical period. But you have some great dialogue, interesting characters, a decent leading performance and some big action set pieces that are impressive. This wasn't the train wreck that I expected and if you're interested in seeing this, don't be afraid to give it a shot. I would be closer to a 6.5/10 but I'll round up to a 7/10.
If you've looked at the reviews for this movie, they're really scathing. I would never argue that this movie is a complete success but critics have been too quick to slam this movie. There's some really good stuff in here. I tend to like most of Guy Ritchie's movies and one of the biggest reasons is that his characters have tons of camaraderie. This is often helped by some stellar dialogue too. They make you laugh but it also helps you believe in the relationships between the characters. That was the strongest part of King Arthur for me. My favourite scenes weren't the big action set pieces, they were the parts where Arthur and his crew were taking care of business in Londinium or sabotaging the villain's operation. Other than the occasional slip up with modern day phrasing (I don't think anyone said razzle-dazzle in the medieval ages?) it reminded me of Jason Statham's dialogue in Snatch. It was generally solid and I laughed throughout the movie.
Guy Ritchie has been at this long enough that he's developed his own way doing action. In some of his projects it works great (Sherlock Holmes has some really great action scenes) and in other projects it doesn't. I thought the actions scenes in Legend of the Sword were good in some areas and they weren't so great in others. I saw this with a friend and she said the action reminded her of video games. She's not wrong. When Arthur uses Excalibur, its like unlocking a special ability in a video game. The CGI is decent (it better be with a $175 million budget) but the movie also can't seem to decide how far into fantasy it wants to go. So the action is a mixed bag, the ending goes too crazy but it didn't affect the overall grade too much.
The acting is also pretty mixed. I actually really liked Charlie Hunnam as Arthur. He's had a tough road transitioning to movies but he had the charisma and the right physicality to pull this role off. I also really liked some of the actors in supporting parts: Aiden Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, Neil Maskell and Kingsley Ben-Adir are all respectively funny and they were believable as a crew. Getting into some of the performances I didn't like as much, I don't want to blame Jude Law because he was trying but Vortigern was a lacklustre character for me. I also thought Astrid Bergès-Frisbey was weak. Her character seemed like something that could have been cut out and she was really wooden as The Mage.
This movie reminds me of 2 other Warner Bros. releases from last year that had a mixed measure of success; The Legend of Tarzan and Suicide Squad. Both of those movie were completely trashed by critics and were flawed products. But they also had some really cool parts and strong aspects that people just threw aside when judging the movie. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword falls into that category for me. The action is mixed, the acting is mixed and the story takes some pretty big liberties from the King Arthur legend and the historical period. But you have some great dialogue, interesting characters, a decent leading performance and some big action set pieces that are impressive. This wasn't the train wreck that I expected and if you're interested in seeing this, don't be afraid to give it a shot. I would be closer to a 6.5/10 but I'll round up to a 7/10.