King Arthur
The Plot:
As the Roman Empire crumbles (circa 450 A.D.), the British Isles are thrown into a loose anarchy as errant knights are entrenched in years of territorial battle. Then, one king emerges to unite them, Arthur, with his concept of a Round Table of united knights. (From Yahoo Movies)
My Thoughts: (Reviewed by K-Billy)
Arthur and his remaining knights of the now depleted round table have dedicated fifteen years of their lives towards defending posts in England for Rome. So at the end of their fifteen year service Arthur and his men, including the brooding Lancelot are grieved to hear that they must complete one more mission for the Romans, and not only that but that the Romans are to abandon their posts in England and leave it to be sacked by the Saxons. With no choice in the matter Arthur with the aid of his knights must set out to bring a Roman family to safety for their son is very important to the pope in Rome. He will be his successor. However on the way Arthur rescues the feisty Guinevere, an English warrior who was imprisoned and the two fall in love. Heightening the situation are the Saxons who grow ever closer to the party. When their mission is complete Arthur must decide whether to abandon poor England, or make one last stand in it’s defense.
This film sets out to tell the story of Arthur before he was king, in fact in the opening credits the movie claims that this is the true story of the famous knight. What it is however is an overly sensationalized, overly dramatic film that is entirely too light on plot or acting prowess and relies heavily on cheap thrills and mediocre action sequences. The plot of this film is so weak that it’s hard to even understand what’s going on, even who the characters are. In fact the viewer is thrown right into the action from the beginning of the film, signifying that the real reason it was made was to push the limit of how dumbed down of a film an audience will watch just to witness a few sequences of PG-13 violence. The development of the characters is minimal to say the least, the only real back story being two sequences that amount to nothing at all trying to tell the origins of Lancelot and the origins of Arthur. They’re terribly generic, one involving the separation of son from family and the other resulting in the death of one’s parents. Sadly this happens to be one of those movies were the characters are so seriously underdeveloped that their fates in the film don’t matter in the slightest. You will not cry when major characters die and you will not care when battles are won for there is nothing to be joyous about. When one battle ends you merely wait for the next, hoping that the obvious filler in between action will be mercifully short. But the film takes itself to seriously for that. It’s almost as if it’s makers really expected us to believe it was a movie worthy of the title of greatness such as Braveheart or Gladiator. It’s as if they thought that Clive Owen’s character Arthur could ever compare to Gibson’s William Wallace or Crowe’s Maximus. It’s pretentious and unnerving for you can tell from the lack of advertising and absence of star power that this film has no quality at all.
This film really has nothing going for it as far as acting goes. Clive Owen portrays Arthur with a coldness, believing that to put forth a good performance you merely have to look like a hero. In actuality his poor delivery ruins scenes, none more evident then his crying out to God on the battlefield which incurs laughter in an otherwise serious scene. His knights themselves amount to nothing at all. For the most part they are there simply to wave their swords and fire their bows. With the exception of a few comedic lines none were memorable. The same can be said about Lancelot, played by Ian Gruffudd. His performance is even duller then Owen’s. And then comes Guinevere, a take charge female character who is just that, nothing more. There is no depth to her, no real story to her motives, only her skimpy outfits and war paint that she displays with pride on the battlefield. Kiera Knightley should be capable of much more then this, her only interesting aspect amounts to a PG-13 sex scene that only thrills in it’s sensuality. This bothers me because people rave about there being an action oriented strong female character in this film but they are entirely wrong. This is a strong female character only in the physical sense of the word. Guinevere has no substance much like many of the characters in the film. However no one is worse then the leader of the Saxons played by Stellen Skarsgard. This is the worst film villain possibly of all time. The entire army of the Saxons have absolutely no purpose what so ever. And their leader bares no accent other then that of a one dimensional villain who sounds like he came straight out of an old western picture. With more then half of his lines usually being “Kill all of them” or “Burn it.”
In
the end, King Arthur is a terrible film. It’s one and only redeeming
quality would be a mildly interesting battle sequence at the end of the film.
However even this isn’t that well done and doesn’t warrant the
laborious build up it takes to finally get to the scene. This film suffers
not only from underdeveloped characters but also from as stripped down a storyline
as possible, terrible acting and frenetically paced directing from Antoine
Fuqua that makes you want to close your eyes to catch your bearings. So the
end result is an incomprehensible mess of a film that takes itself far more
seriously then it should. As Arthur, Clive Owen repeatedly states that he’s
fighting for a great cause, a purpose if you will. However this film has no
purpose at all, other then showing that money corrupts and the thought of
big box office receipts can steal the creativity and originality away from
cinema.
Starring:
Clive Owen, Stephen Dillane, Keira Knightley, Hugh Dancy, Ioan Gruffudd
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Rated PG-13