Ritchie’s King Arthur a disappointment
Print Edition
DEEP into Guy Ritchie’s “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” a bad guy who we’ve never met before informs Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) and his mates that they’d better be at the castle before dark if they want to see “the boy” and “the girl” again. It’s one of those harmless, up the stakes cliches that are all too common in action movies, but, in the flawed yet amusing “King Arthur,” it unwittingly left me baffled. “Which girl?” I wondered, sincerely doubting that this was the intended effect.
At this point there are two options: The Mage (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), a strange animal-controlling sorceress who we recently saw with a knife at her throat, or Maggie (Annabelle Wallis) who over the course of the movie is so underdeveloped that at different points I’d thought she was Arthur’s presumed to be dead mother (who is in fact played by the just similar enough-looking Poppy Delevingne) or the evil King Vortigern’s (Jude Law) wife. (She’s neither.) It’s a strange thing for a movie that is this packed to the brim with dialogue and clever exposition to have managed to so insufficiently explain a supposed key player. The film is somehow both overwritten and underwritten.
It’s a stretch to even deem it a King Arthur movie (marketing calls it an “iconoclastic take on the classic Excalibur myth,” while a producer says it’s “not your father’s King Arthur.”)
And yet, “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” is reasonably entertaining with its CGI-laden summer nonsense, stuffed with mystical beasts (including giant elephant-like creatures with wrecking ball tails), vulgar action and delicious scenery chewing from Law. It skates by on Ritchie’s divisively kinetic filmmaking and the charisma of Hunnam’s reluctant hero.
This Arthur was raised in a brothel after seeing his mother and father, King Uther (Eric Bana) killed in a coup. A speed-induced montage later and Arthur is a fully grown and martial arts trained man who is a street-wise protector of the brothel’s prostitutes. His Uncle Vortigern, who sold his soul to get the crown, rules Camelot. But Vortigern can’t access his full powers without the Excalibur sword, which, as you know, is stuck in a rock. This leads Vortigern’s soldiers to round up every man of Arthur’s age to find the remaining heir.
Hunnam’s Arthur is a wise-cracking, sensitive brute, who neither seeks nor wants power. What he does want is never really explored beyond the fact that he cares about his friends and feels some sort of obligation to protect the weak. But he eventually gets on board with his birthright — partly to avenge his father’s death and partly because a group of outlaws sort of make him do it.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
