King Arthur Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)July 17th, 2004
King Arthur
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
July 14, 2004
My Own Tagline---Trying to reach 'Braveheart' heights with a Disney ladder
'King Arthur' is the second ultra-violent movie I've seen in the past few days that zipped into theatres with a PG-13 rating (the low-key Peter Parker flick is the other one). Ordinarily, I don't care if a movie is jammed with grat nudity, blood, cursing, and other adult behaviour. I'm a grown man who can handle mature themes and I'm actually pretty tired of all this sanitized stuff we have to see for fear of showing a pre-teen what he's already seen & heard before. I mention the PG-13 this time because director Antoine Fuqua ('Training Day') seems to be reaching for 'Braveheart' heights by using a Disney ladder. If you're going to film scenes of death and carnage, don't chicken out and show specks of blood here & there. The only reason to see this unremarkable picture is to get a load of the medieval battle scenes, but even those are wimpy compared to oft-horrifying war pics, such as 'Saving Private Ryan' and movies directed by Mel Gibson.
The Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot story has been adapted by Hollywood before and it surely will be again. Fuqua and writer David Franzoni take a sharp turn off the Camelot path and try to achieve some historical accuracy. As with Wolfgang Petersen's Python-esque 'Troy', I've got to admit to a relative ignorance of the story or the bona fide history. Beyond what past movies have shown us, I'm not sure most people have any idea what the Arthur legend entails. Since Rome and Sarmatians and Saxons are mentioned more often than the Round Table, this latest edition comes off as confusing. I was tired as it was, but a micro-nap or two was inevitable when I stopped caring after about an hour. Who's who? Hell if I knew.
Clive Owen gets top billing as the top gun, King Art himself. Owen is not your typical front-liner for a summer movie, nor does his name carry the box office weight that past Arthur's, Sean Connery and Richard Harris, carried. It's not that he's bad in the title role. He's strapping, rugged, and has the necessary gravitas. Maybe that's the flaw. King Arthur (both the movie and the man) is too serious. Didn't the Monty Python gang roast all the overcooked medieval movies like this 30 years ago when they hunted for the holy grail? I hesitate to make too much fun of Owen because he looks the kind of guy who might beat the snot out of me, just on "film critics are snarky dorks" principle. Granted, the character can't be flouncing around like a fun-loving cheerleader at homecoming, but this particular Arthur isn't crazy & ferocious enough or charming & gregarious enough to linger in my memory for longer than the end of this review.
So where is Guinevere? Lancelot? Merlin? Trusty Excalibur? They're all here, although each of them is re-imagined. The red-hot Keira Knightley pulls off a passable Joan of Arc impersonation as Guinevere while Ioan Gruffudd is the softest soap of a Lancelot you'll ever see. Merlin (Stephen Dillane) seems to be warring with Arthur's crazy-brave knights, until he pulls a babyface turn (as they call it in wrestling) and decides to join the fight for Britain against the Saxons. The glowering Stellan Skarsgard (with his 10-foot beard, he looks like a cross between John Huston in 'The Bible' and John Travolta in 'Battlefield Earth') plays the chief Saxon, Cerdic. And Arthur's loyal knights (among them, the bald and intense Ray Winstone) are on hand to kick some old-school behind when the carbon copy screenplay calls for an action scene.
It took me a long, long time to figure out which of the knights was in fact Lancelot. There's a cigarette burn-hole worth of heat between Lance & Gwinny, but Fuqua doesn't seem interested in giving Gruffudd much to do beyond being the second-guesser. Whenever Arthur makes a decision, Lancelot questions it. Some friend... If I didn't know about the infamous love triangle, I'd hardly even notice that Guinevere's legacy is that she tore things apart by loving 2 men. She's a great archer, but not much of a home-wrecker. Okay, the film might be portraying this angle accurately, but they already 86ed the Lady In The Lake and all such magic. Sure, the filmmakers deserve some credit for trying something new by grounding the flick in earthy reality and not regurgitating what we've seen before, but I prefer this particular legend the other way. A little movie magic and an Arthurian flight of fancy at this time of year---when nearly every movie is driven by F/X horsepower and no brain power---would have been nice.
The plusses nearly boost 'King Arthur' into respectability. Slawomir Idziak (who shot 'Black Hawk Down' for Ridley Scott) gives the picture the right look. I don't recall seeing too many blue skies, so Idziak had to work around some grungy obstacles. He makes the snowy scenes among the best in the entire production, especially a terrific battle on a river of cracking ice. The sound designers attempted to rumble me right out of my seat with the bass pumping out of the booming subwoofer. It's not all bombast, though. Fuqua doesn't give the quiet moments much life, but at least he doesn't try to destroy our eardrums for 2 straight hours.
Those goods don't cancel out the bads. Franzoni (who also wrote 'Gladiator' and the upcoming Carthaginian tale, 'Hannibal') keeps churning out the same basic construct of a script. This is not a writer who takes chances or has any sort of insight into real human emotions. His characters are tedious, duty-bound drips. And why is everybody, especially Arthur, so bummed? Sure, he wants freedom for his men and he must be concerned about the way they keep dancing with death, but this is supposed to be a compelling piece of entertainment, isn't it? Except for a few brief times, I was not entertained. Oh, and please tell Hans Zimmer to stop plugging his generic, overdone music score into each new project. Is he even trying anymore?
Passing on this during its theatrical run means you'll miss out on some giant sound and some scenic photography. If you like your tale of Camelot---which doesn't actually mention Camelot---to plod through the paces, check out 'King Arthur'. All others, don't waste your time. Super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer is so wealthy that he doesn't really need your money anyway. Any movie with Keira Knightley strutting her bad self around in a Princess Leia 'Return Of The Jedi' costume can't be 25 kilos of suckatude. If only she showed up before the movie was nearly half over. And if only the immaculately coiffed and bearded Lancelot didn't look like he just stepped out of the publicity department. Even in his non-bloody death, he looks pretty. Oh, don't tell Arthur I said that. After I took such a shot at his best buddy, he might be angry enough to act glum.
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