King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
/"Why have enemies when you can have friends?"
Filmology Rating: 2 out of 4
Everyone in some fashion hears about the Legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable. I first learned about the lesson either with the Disney animated film The Sword in the Stone or with the Magic Tree House book series, and for a small period of time I had a fascination with medieval history. After The Sword in the Stone I found my way over to Monty Python and the Holy Grail being one of the most humorous looks at Arthur and his knights which still remains a comedy classic. I have yet to venture to the 2004 film, King Arthur, directed by Antoine Fuqua but after watching King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, the film has jumped a little higher on my must watch list. Sadly I have also never watched the BBC show Merlin but social media has nothing but positive things to say about the show and once again it’s moved up higher on my watch list. What I’m trying to say is that every generation has a different version of the mythology, so I went in wondering if Guy Ritchie would be able to redefine the mythology for this latest generation.
Arthur, played by Charlie Hunnam, is always on the run. He looks at himself as a protector of the weak and defenseless but after finding the sword Excalibur he runs from any chance to help save the kingdom from the rule of Vortigern, played by Jude Law. Arthur must overcome his fear and wield the great sword and unite the knights to take down the ruthless ruler.
One of the oddest aspects of the film to me is how much exposition and background characters that are in the film. It truly feels like you are watching part two of a film saga which is on one hand a bold move and on another it’s incredibly infuriating because characters are being introduced and then quickly killed off. The film makes it feel like these characters are some of the most important characters in the universe yet as an audience member you have no reason to care for a character who is introduced and only a few moments later killed off. The film lacks a build up so it has no reason to earn a pay off. I like a film that has a universe that feels lived in and complete but that world needs to be earned. If random character shows up and then the music goes all dramatic and the character is then killed, why should I care? Who is this character to me? Maybe they deserved to die? That makes it sound more like a joke than the dramatic beat the film makes it seem but if the film is only filled with red shirt characters then I have no reason to care about any of the characters, even when characters who you do start to know are killed off because the casualties are so high. The closest film that King Arthur: Legend of the Sword reminds me of is last year’s Warcraft. While I thought the world of Warcraft was intriguing, visiting the world of medieval London isn’t as fun because we have seen it so many times before.
That’s probably the biggest issue with this film; we have seen it all before: greedy family member kills king to become king, son of fallen father must train and unite the kingdoms to defeat the greedy ruler. Mythology is so Shakespearean, or would it be the other way around? A famous painter did once say “good artists copy, great artists steal” and that sadly is the case with this latest Guy Ritchie film. Even Ritchie’s signature style gets old incredibly fast after being repeated at least four times. Having a character recite a monologue while the visual is showing the action of the monologue occurring is interesting to watch once but it quickly loses its novelty after being shown in every film Ritchie directs and then being in this film so often. Ritchie can make great films, he has proven that before with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and RocknRolla, and even if the film has some issues they can always be entertaining like Sherlock Holmes and The Man from UNCLE but after watching King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, I hope Ritchie can find a novel way to tell stories because the methods that he tells stories lately has been rather bland and uninteresting.
Most people reading this are probably wondering why I haven’t mentioned the stars of the film yet: Charlie Hunnam and Jude Law; the simple reason for that is because the characters in this film are completely forgettable. While Hunnam is not one of my favorite actors and proved to have some skill with The Lost City of Z he decided to go back to his acting skills of Pacific Rim with this film. I never understand why Arthur wants to deny his destiny, Hunnam never convinces me of a reason, and since most of the film is Arthur running from it I need to be connected to him when he eventually picks up Excalibur and embraces everything he has been running from. Jude Law has the voice of a classic villain as he proved with Rise of the Guardians and he proves to almost have a sense of good British charm but none of those qualities came through with his performance as Vortigern in this film. Law deserved better than this film but since he is apparently friends with Ritchie after working on the Holmes films, he will sadly follow Ritchie anywhere.
Will King Arthur: Legend of the Sword help explore the Legend of Camelot for the current generation? I highly doubt it. In a world where we have great stories like Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings you really need to tell a compelling and entertaining story and this film is definitely not that. The studio was hoping for a franchise started with this film but it seems that Excalibur should be lost for awhile so deep that Ritchie cannot find it again.
Rating: Skip It
-Jonny G