Title Directed by
Rating
Times Seen
King Arthur Fuqua, Antoine 0 1
     I can hear my dad's voice in response to this review already...something to the effect of me saying that such and such a movie was a 4 or a 5, when this film gets a ZERO? I haven't given a zero to a picture online before, but other films I count as zeroes are League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Medallion. The reason they get zeroes is that they had all the tools to make a great film - big budget, good cast, good concept and they screwed it up in one, or in this case many ways.
    I would describe King Arthur with three terms: Anachronistic, Confused and Try-Hard.
    Now when I say Anachronistic, I'm not simply referring to the fact that the tribal Celts are deadly accurate with a trebuchet. Nor am I referring to the moments where the Saxon warlord(who went to the same acting school as Steven Seagal), mutters his lines in hushed tones in perfect English and then barks out commands to his army who reply in some Scandihoovian lingo, while the Woads(Celtic people who look to have been at a rave) say all their 'inside dialogue' with subtitles.
      It's Anachronistic in that, while it's well researched historically, everyone runs around with 20th century values even Braveheart didn't use. The theme of the movie is freedom. Freedom freedom freedom. Most of the film's dialogue goes something like this.
EVIL TYRANT: I am a gross caricature of a human being. I shall oppress you.

SERF: Wail wail wail.

ARTHUR: Everyone should have freedom. (Cuts loose the oppressed serf and turns to onlooking serfs who have just been told they should have freedom.) Help this man. (Serfs just stand around, tired as they are from being oppressed and all.) HELP THIS MAN!!! (Points with sword.)

SERFS: But you just told us we were fre---

ARTHUR: I SAID HELP HIM ALREADY DAMMIT!
Everyone talks about freedom in this movie. The sort of freedom that only an apple pie eating American could imagine anyone living in the dark ages would even have a dram of a concept about. While this worked for Braveheart,that film's success has turned every freedom speech on horseback into a cliche, unless it's done by Viggo Mortenson, in which case in carreens on the edge of cliche, but comes off as an homage. Guinevere, played by Keira Knightly (who is constantly mugging for the camera by tilting her head forward and raising her eyebrows as if to say, "Is my ass not the hottest thing you've ever seen?") talks about freedom and waxes philosophic from a cart while she's supposed to be so deathly sick in the scene prior that someone comments that "the girl and the boy won't make it unless we stop for the night." A night's rest and Guinevere's on the freedom train. I kept waiting for Denzel Washington to emerge from the trees in a suit and say, "I have a dream..."
don't have trouble with people wanting to get out from under oppression. But the film would have worked better if Arthur had to actually convince somebody this was something worth fighting for. Truthfully, there are no actually conflicts in this movie, at least not the kind that bring transformation to the protagonist. There are skirmishes, and people change their mind a little. Everytime we think someone is going to have a conflict, such as Lancelot telling Arthur he always talks to God and never to him, the idea gets dropped. Most of the ideas in King Arthur are like this. I can just see the writer and Bruckheimer in a meeting.
JERRY BRUCKHEIMER: Ooh! And how about this cool idea...and this one...and this one...and this one...

WRITER: You do realize that if we pack the movie this dense, we can't develop any of the characters or concepts, right?

JB: That's okay, just beat that freedom concept to death and everyone will go home happy, especially the Texans.

So...anachronistic.
And it's confused. Which is just more of that dense idea. The movie is never quite sure if it's Gladiator or Braveheart or Monty Python's Holy Grail. Peter Jackson made a comment about the dialogue in LOTR that the writers had to work very hard to create lines people could deliver with a straight face that wouldn't denigrate into evoking memoriesof "Bring out your dead!" When Arthur arrives at the fort which holds the family he needs to escort to safety (a vile little subplot which has as much to do with the Arthurian mythology as Danny DeVito's Penguin biting off raw fishheads had to do with the Batman mythology) the Roman guards posted there do a "halt who goes there" sort of moment, despite the fact that wherever the Saxons go on this accursed little island Arthur's name is whispered as though he were a god. I guess that's just the price you pay for being popular royalty before British tabloids.
There are a slough of confused concepts. When the Sarmatian Knights' horses' want to return to the battle, we as an audience are unsure if it is simply because they're superior warhorses or because someone threw away a line near the beginning of the film that the horses know their rider's destiny better than they do. (I would stay far away from such a horse if it was constantly taking me into battles where the odds were grossly stacked against me.)!!!!!!SPOLIER AHEAD!!!!!! Lancelot is doing the voiceover as though he is alive at the end of the movie...but he's not, which leads us to believe he's been reincarnated as one of the horses pictured at the end of the film(was Mr. Ed a descendant of Sarmatian warhorses?) even though no one mentions being reincarnated as a horse at any time in the movie. And was the 200 bow salute at Arthur's wedding the way they launched his ashes, seeing how Lancelot requests to have his remains burned (which we see) and scattered to the East (which is important because it symbolizes him finally going home, although that's really only some confused subplot...despite the fact that he's the first major cast member we see and...WHO WROTE THIS SCRIPT?) but we're never actually sure his ashes did get scattered because Arthur and Guinevere were apparently too busy planning their pagan wedding...
The editing is confused as well, and looking at the footage that made it onscreen, I can't say I blame the guy who did it. There are some seriously abysmal shots, so if those weren't all deleted scenes, I'm not interested in seeing the ones that were. I kept thinking of Joel from MST3K saying "what? huh?" when an image would appear on the theater screen that seemed really disconnected from the one immediately prior. It was obvious that many of the scenes had pickup work done, but that there was little attention paid to continuity of lighting, or little details like making sure the massive army is still in the background of the climactic fight between Arthur and the Saxon warlord.
The characters are confused as well. Lancelot isn't sure whether he's cavalier or tortured. His performance makes Brad Pitt's Achilles look decisive. Arthur isn't sure whether he's a king or a democrat. Guinevere isn't sure whether she's a mystic forest nymph or Xena warrior princess. The only characters who seemed to have any continuity are some of Arthur's mighty men who sadly, get killed. Cool character awards go to Dagonet, a bald man with a vicious scar and a penchant for swinging a battle axe who tells a young child "do not fear me," and Tristan, the quiet I-am-a-Ninja-fighter-until-the-script-requires-I-die-at-the-hands-of-the-evil-villain-so-Arthur-can-kick-his-ass-in-revenge.
And finally, this film is try hard. It tries really hard to be historical, so hard that it never bothers to be personal. Every character looks like they walked off a textbook of ancient peoples in Great Britain, but talks like the script was made with a piece of software you insert names into to pump out a plot. More attention is paid to authenticity of armor than plausibility of dialogue. It also tries hard to blow shit up. The final battle involves a lot of tar and pitch. This is Bruckheimer's signature, but really, nothing covers up a bad action piece like shit blowing up. A few pyrotechnics, and no one seems to care that we never really see anyone connect a blow with their opponents body. Someone should give an award to the foley guys, because without the sound effects, I'd never have believed anyone was actually struck in this movie.
Someone will comment that production values were good, that the research was solid, costumes were good and the actors were for the most part good performers. This is all true. And this is precisely why King Arthur gets a ZERO. They had concepts, elements and the tools to make a fantastic picture.
And they didn't. I pine for a viewing of Excalibur.

Movie Reviews - King Arthur

Legend
10
 This movie is in my "top 10 films" list.
9
 I laughed, I cried, I peed my pants because there was no good time to leave the theater.
8
 The kind of movie you see twice and tell all your friends about.
7
 Worth paying full admission for.
6
 Worth seeing.
5
 Could have waited for DVD.
4
 Should have waited for DVD.
3
 Even if I'd waited for the DVD I'd still feel cheated out of the rental price.
2
 If someone ever gives me this movie I'll use the DVD as a coaster.
1
 Kept watching because my arms were pinned and I couldn't claw my eyes out.
0
 Piece of crap.
WO
Walked out.