Review
Do we really need another re-telling of the King Arthur Legend? Apparently the studio was pretty convinced about it, as this version was given a budget of $175m. What do we get for that? Well first of all we don’t really get a re-telling, rather Guy Ritchie’s re-imagining of the story. And we don’t get the whole story – there are ambitions for this to be a new Movie Universe with this first movie being Arthur’s origins story; further movies would tell the origins of Merlin, Percival and maybe others, before bringing it all together. With global takings in the first month of $35m those sequels still seem pretty far off though…
So what’s different about this re-imagining? Maybe best to think of it as being set in a Lord of the Rings-like fantasy world with wizardry and aspired-to-be-epic battles including various seriously oversized animals that have nothing to do with the original legend; combined with a Game of Thrones-like level of intrige; and accompanied by a Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels-like non-stop smart banter between Art, Percy and the rest of the crew; all in a fairly frantic visual style that leaves little to no time to marvel in any of its expensive beauty.
So what’s different about this re-imagining?
But is it any good? Well, sort of but not really. It is pretty fun, lots of things going on, most of it fairly silly and over the top – but you have to accept that straight from the outset as 100 meter high killer elephants walk onto the screen. Charlie Hunnam does a pretty good job making Arthur a lead character, despite wearing what looks like a bomber jacket and sporting a haircut that was probably inspired by David Beckham (who makes a small cameo appearance), and Jude Law and Eric Bana also deliver what one would expect of them.
But a successful start to a new mega-blockbuster franchise this is not. So enjoy it for what it is: two hours of over-CGI’d frantic action that isn’t nearly as epic as its director’s ambitions and which you will have mostly forgotten again already by the time you get home from the cinema.
★★½
Film Stills
