Randal - Yipes. Just Yipes
Datne - Yeah. Do you think they're cognizant of how bad they got it?
Randal - Let's hope not. Poor bastards.
Clerks - Uncensored
[Dave] That was what first popped into my mind after King Arthur finished. Yipes. This was bad. I mean _bad_. I'm not really big on Arthurian legend, so I'm not capable of nitpicking how Sir Gwain the Green Knight didn't exist yet or whatever, but I can recognize bad when I see it.
The movie's plot (and script) sound suspiciously similar to a Vietnam movie. Squadron of soldiers, renowned for their battles, are told on the eve of their discharge that they've got one more mission. They've got to travel deep into native territory to rescue a VIP before the invaders from the north take control of the region.
With such great characters as "Big Guy", "Ladies' Man", "Leader", "Guy With Pet Animal", and "Big Guy's Sidekick Who Exists Only To Die So Big Guy Can Show Emotion", it really isn't a surprise when illogical plot conveniences and dumb-as-bricks adversaries are the order of the day. One stunning display of Saxon stupidity comes in the final battle. After being led into an ambush, the Saxons get shot by Arrow Snipers, then attacked by Arthur and his knights on horseback. Their response? Stand there. And get shot more.
You do like seeing arrows arc through the air, right? Good! That's about a third of the movie's combat, the rest being nigh-incomprehensible mass melee fights. Between the shaky camera work and constant abuse of smoke, it ends up very difficult deciphering who's waving a sword near whom. Apparently there was some buzz about how this movie was to have rather crunchy, graphic sword battles. Nope. Definitely less violence than Lord of the Rings, that's for sure.
For what its worth, the acting and all is perfectly fine. It was just one pointless behind-the-camera decision after another. Some guy sells out the British to the Saxons even though the Saxons make it pretty clear they'll probably kill him, too? Sure! Arthur and his men do insanely stupid things in battle, even though the complex strategy "Shoot them with arrows. A lot." was working fine? Of course! Have Theoden Some Saxon Leader stand there looking stupid for about ten minutes while his men get slaughtered? You bet!
Oh yeah. There's a large amount of wandering aimlessly and staring off screen in the movie. Even during battles. Now that I think about it, there were a real lack of medium shots, mostly two people in-frame at in any given shot. Some wide shots probably would have helped the battles considerably, now that I think about it.
King Arthur does for Arthur what Dungeons & Dragons did for DnD.
[Lauren]
King Arthur and his knights of the round table. The mystical magic of Merlin. The love and loss of the beautiful Guinevere. They’re legends, exciting bits of history and fantasy that are perennial favorites for audiences. Just the mention of those names brings up a myriad of popular attempts to portray the story; serious drama, animated children’s fantasy, television movies, and killer rabbits. The latest in the long line of King Arthur movies claims to be a more authentic, realistic portrayal of the story, one that will embrace the truth behind the fiction and show that reality is just as wonderful as fantasy.
If only any of that actually worked.
Clive Owen is the title character, leading the legendary band of indentured servant knights for the crumbling Roman Empire. They’re posted in England, defending the walls from invading Saxton hordes and Braveheart rejects…uh…I mean savage native tribes. The day the 15 year contract of service with the knights is to end and they are to be granted freedom the Church sends them on one last, dangerous mission to save the favorite grandson of the Pope who’s in danger of being killed by said invading hordes. So Arthur and his boy band gear up and gallop off, getting into lots of battles, moralizing about the state of the Roman Empire, preaching about freedom, and making lots of jokes about bastard children. In the end they’re left allying with the natives to defend what’s left of England from the bad guys.
Let’s start with what worked in the movie, though little did. The acting overall was good, nothing standout but solid performances all around. The rowdy gang of legendary knights have an easy friendship after 15 years of service together, and show it in semi-funny banter that ranged from a few honestly laughworthy jokes to more raunchy humor the guys in the audience enjoyed more then I did. Owen does a good job of portraying a conflicted Arthur whose loyalty is divided between the knights he’s sworn to protect and bring to freedom alive, and the ideals of truth, justice, and the Round Table way. The bad guys manage to be honest, real nasty men without degrading into scene chewing evil laughter. And everyone managed to do their absolute best with some truly awful dialogue, managing to make some wince-worthy lines bearable.
The costumes were also very good. They walked that line of being interesting while still practical and realistic for everyone from the knights down to the peasants. Though some of the helmets the knights wore look like they’d spent the summer with some samurai, and the outrageous blue body-painting England natives left me wondering who’d watched Braveheart a few too many times. Along with that many of the sets and locations were very nicely done, and certainly showed off some of the beauty of Ireland. So if you can forget you’re supposed to be in England then you can enjoy it without qualm.
However what didn’t work was much more evident then what did.
The idea that this movie is accurate history is simply ludicrous. Guinevere as the feral, deadly native who falls in love with Arthur, is played with cat-like grace by Keira Knightley. You get the feeling her character is based more on her outfits (or lack of) than on any historical record. The father of said favorite grandson is a pompous, arrogant asshole who apparently has set up his own version of the Spanish Inquisition in his backyard for no apparent reason than the fact that he’s a pompous, arrogant asshole. On top of that his estate, placed in the north of England, looks like something plucked from the Roman wealthy district, complete with a large marble Roman statue in the front yard. Yea…sure…England is just covered in the ruins of Roman art and architecture. The legendary knights themselves are reduced to nothing more than slaves who happen to be really good at what they do, and are ready to give up on England at the end of their service and get the heck out of town.
The battle sequences, and there are many, have nothing exciting or awe-inducing to make them memorable. If you’re a fan of Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood you may enjoy the many, many, MANY shots of flying arrows as well as the overused ArrowCam. Battles are mostly filmed in Blair Witch vision, and I really wish someone would introduce Antoine Fuqua to an invention called the SteadyCam. I’m sure the battles were probably very well choreographed and intense, but it was hard to tell with the camera shaking like a 9.5 Richter earthquake. There’s a standoff across a frozen lake between the knights and a chuck of the invading horde that might have been interesting if it wasn’t painfully obvious in the first few minutes of the scene what would happen. And the final, ending battle shows some good tactics by Arthur and his new native pals that work mostly because the horde are apparently all as dumb as stumps.
There are other, smaller problems with the movie. There’s a Roman traitor working for the bad guys who provides all kinds of juicy intel for them, though despite the fact that the Saxtons ask him just what the heck his motivation is we never find out just what made this guy turn traitor. Guinevere and Arthur have a pretty un-steamy sex scene for no real reason other than to have a sex scene and remind everyone that gee, these two kids are falling in love. Merlin is reduced to the leader of the natives who spends most of his time standing around looking grizzled while explaining the plot and the backstory. Lots of people die, including a bunch of the knights, but since we really don’t learn enough about most of them to get attached and care about their fate, their deaths come with a shrug. Arthur’s knights come to his aid towards the end of the movie as they face the final battle, and we’re subjected to the clichéd pep-talk you see leaders in war movies give their men before “epic” battles…though this one kinda falls flat since it’s obvious by their presence these knights don’t NEED a rallying speech, and the fact that there are only SEVEN of them makes it look ridiculous!
In the end it’s just not a good movie. Perhaps I’d be a bit more forgiving if they hadn’t tried to pawn it off as history rather than fantasy, but there are enough other problems to make King Arthur not worth the price of admission. Go rent Monty Python And The Holy Grail, and if someone asks you to come to the theater with them to see King Arthur, to quote the good movie, “Run away! Run away!”
[Erich]"King Arthur" would be a great movie if it weren't trying to be a fresh take on the mythology of Camelot. There are actually two movies here: one is an above-average action movie, hued in the mold of "Gladiator" and "Braveheart." The action movie part of KA is set in Britain in the 5th century during the withdrawal of the Roman army. Arthur's knights have finished their period of indentured service and grapple with the sense that their lifework is about to be thrown away. And so they fight, uncertain what they are fight for and more uncertain what they will do when they stop fighting. Director Antoine Fuqua is at his best here. The movie wisely opts to avoid dialogue for this, as in the few occasions when Arthur does make Big Speeches about freedom it ends up sounding hackneyed and clichéd. But battle scenes are energetic and encompassing. Faqua deserves credit for avoiding the sense of languid sprawl which stank up the castle siege in "Timeline." I personally never really wondered what the famous Battle on the Ice from "Alexander Nevsky" looked like from underwater, but now I know. (For you non-role players "Alexander Nevsky" is a classic 1938 black and white film by Sergei M. Eisenstein depicting the battle between the Russian peasants lead by Prince Nevsky and the invading German army of Teutonic Knights).
The other movie is where the problems come in. It is impossible to get over preconceived notions for characterizations. To sell the movie as a summer blockbuster, the names of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table feel grafted awkwardly on to these characters. This attempt at historical interpretation is as incongruous as the marble statue in the movie stuck in the mud before the Roman villa. Lancelot is a Mongol tribesman from the steppes. Arthur orders Christian priests to be walled up alive inside a prison. While I didn't expect him to be questing for the Holy Grail, I sure didn't expect Abu Ghraib. Guinevere is given Gaelic grrl-power with blue dye, band-aid-like bra straps and a bow. So when the audience I was in laughed as Guinevere tells Arthur "I'm Guinevere," it's a sure sign we weren't buying it. Not because my mind was closed by movies like "Excalibur" and "Disney's The Sword in the Stone." To the contrary - after Sean Connery and Richard Gere in "First Knight," I was more than ready to demystify an Arthur built up for centuries starting with the romances of Chretien de Troyes and Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur." Lots of literature, such as "The Mists of Avalon", manages to reinterpret the old myths in an historically accurate (if New Age-y) manner. It must be a cottage industry, like searching for the real city of Troy. But KA never manages it. think I understand the dilemma that Jerry Bruckheimer and Touchstone Pictures faced. If they hadn't named names, the film would have been an action/adventure movie for the art house crowd, a great tale that captured beautifully the feeling of quiet desperation of a world about to slip into the Dark Ages, but one that never achieved larger market penetration and box office success. The net effect is that we hardly recognize anything from the legends apart from the names.
Conclusion: see "King Arthur" as a summer sword flick that has almost nothing to do with King Arthur. Watch for a standout performance by Ray Winstone (Sir Bors). I recognized Winstone from his role of Will Scarlet in the BBC production "Robin of Sherwood" back in the mid-1980s (and if you haven't seen the television series, I highly recommend it.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086791/).
http://www.kingarthurmovie.com/ or http://kingarthur.movies.go.com/main.html