Charlie Hunnam (Warner Bros./Village Roadshow Pictures)
Ah, Camelot! The Knights of the Round Table! Percival, King Arthur, and…Kung Fu George? King Arthur: Legend of the Sword isn’t your ancestors’ Arthurian legend. But if you’re really generous about poetic license, it’s an entertaining (if frustrating) adventure.
Vortigern (Jude Law) pays a heavy price for power; killing his beloved in a pact with an evil sea creature who is part octopus and part woman. The parents of a young boy are killed trying to ensure his safe escape from the darkness that has fallen upon this kingdom, and that boy, under the patient tutelage of martial arts master George (Tom Wu), grows up to be Charlie Hunnam, who makes his way in Londinium unaware of his lineage and the threat he poses to the king.
Fair enough as literary adaptation goes, if a bit In Your Face. This is Guy Ritchie after all, a director who sees the world through distinctively Guy Ritchie glasses. After launching his career with gritty indie action movies like Snatch, his promotion to the major leagues has often meant a bowdlerization of classic material that’s filtered through post-Tarantino sensibilites: Sherlock Holmes, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Now he’s gone medieval, and the result may be ridiculous as an adaptation of classic literature. But as action movies go, I’ve seen worse.
If you’ve seen the trailer for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, you might be aghast to hear Led Zeppelin scoring this quasi-historical pageant. Unfortunately (for me) there is no Led Zeppelin in this movie, which is scored instead by the perhaps even more bombastic music of Daniel Pemberton. A layer of vintage heavy metal might have worked pretty well, but the modernization comes instead from Ritchie’s fragmented story-telling, roving camera and nearly incoherent fight scenes.
Still, once the script lurches out of a slow first act, it’s hard not to feel for Arthur’s reluctant hero, uncertain that he can face the troubles of his past or the weight of his destiny. While supporting characters don’t fare as well (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey’s thickly accented Mage seemed particularly silly, not conveying any real sense of magical authority), Hunnam is a capable leader and Law a serviceable villain.
The first in a proposed six-film arc, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword isn’t exactly a good movie. Like so many contemporary blockbusters, it seems like a B-movie blown up to blockbuster heights, and its monster-movie CGI makes one long for the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. But this legend has enough energy to get you through a tub of popcorn.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Written by Joby Harold, Guy Ritchie and Lionel Wigram
With Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Jude Law
Opens today at area theaters.
