Gamelkateinthecinema | King Arthur:
Legend of the Sword
Director: Guy Ritchie
Release: 2017
Writers: Story by David Dobkin and
Joby Harold | Screenplay by Joby Harold and Guy Ritchie
Genre: Action/adventure/drama
Rating: PG-13
Here is a film with a split
personality disorder. On one hand it has Guy Ritchie stamped all over it; an
entertaining, modern story about the English class system with slow motion
sequences, punchy music, long montages and fast cuts. On the other hand, if you
went to see King Arthur with a wild hope of some historical accuracy,
craftsmanship or original creative design, you’re not getting it here.
In essence, Ritchie presents the
simple story of the Legend of King Arthur, Part One. We follow Arthur (the ever
attractive Charlie Hunnam) from his childhood growing up in a brothel, to the
start of his adult years, where he is ordered to pull the sword from the stone by
an ageing David Beckham. Arthur,
having been educated about his family tree by the current King (Jude Law), begins
battling to take back the crown as the rightful ruler of Westeros… or was it
England? With some help from his merry band of friends and a well cast mage
(Astrid Bergés-Frisbey), Arthur manages to kill enough men with his magic sword
to contend for the title of King. There is no love interest, and for that at
least, I was thankful. The obvious absence of Merlin and
the unfinished round table indicate Ritchie’s impatience to make a sequel.
I can sympathise with Ritchie’s
choice to sacrifice historical realism in order to fit his creative direction
(I am a Tarantino fan, after all) and sure, he has somewhat of a long leash
when it comes to creative licence, dealing with myth and legend as apposed to
one specific time period, but it felt like a bit of a repeated recipe.
Ritchie seems to have copied from
other fantasy worlds at every chance he could get, the result being a patchwork
of almost-ok-but-not-quite-unique fantasy mash ups. Arthur grows up in
Londinium, a fantasy version of London that from the air looks a lot like a screenshot
from the video game Assassins Creed (complete with 10,000 black-clad expendable and seemingly
useless soldiers) and appears to be located on the side of a mountain. The King’s
castle looks extremely similar to Hogwarts, while his tower is very close to
Sauron’s. King Jude Law’s crown and mail echo the Witch-King of Angmar
(although I have to say he did look impressive), and George’s fighting school
looked like a training scene from The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. The
ultimate bad guy looked like a heavy metal demon complete with fire cape and scythe,
and the Game of Thrones box was also ticked with the appearance of Littlefinger
aka Bill aka Aidan Gillen (aka the worst English accent to ever be heard
onscreen). The removal of the giant battle elephant was a wise move, as this
would have been the nail in the copyright coffin.
But with all this did come some
lovely VFX, composition and mise-en-scene. Despite having no explanation or
back-story, the Lady of the Lake was beautiful, the costumes looked authentic
and suited the feel of the film (if not slightly predictable with Arthur is
white and the King in Black). The camerawork was smooth and had the ‘Guy
Ritchie feel’ in the short go-pro scene. And the music was effective.
All in all this is a film which will
appeal to the typical bloke, or gal’s who like historical weaponry (me), but
does it go deeper than satisfying the needs of a contemporary audience? Go and
see it for yourself. Watching it certainly didn’t feel like a punishment,
although I may have left a few brain cells in the cinema along with my empty popcorn
bucket.
Rating: 6/10
All
images taken from the official King Arthur: Legend of the Sword Trailer
2017, copyright to Warner Brothers Pictures.
I
do not own the rights to these images. All text is written by me and is my
own personal opinion.
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