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King Arthur - 7/7/04 - PG-13 - 130m
Clive Owen - Arthur
Keira Knightly - Guinevere
Ioan Gruffudd - Lancelot
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Written by: David Franzoni
Studio: Touchstone
Official
Website
JEF
Well, I’m no historian, I’m no expert on King Arthur, I’ve never read the story of King Arthur, but I’ve seen several movies based on this mythical tale, and grew up hearing the legend, and this movie took a big side-step in changing the story around. Needless to say, I was a bit confused trying to keep up with the story and the characters.
Storyline: We all know the legend right? You’d think I wouldn’t have to explain the storyline of this movie. But because of the changes I’ll just list a few of the points that make for a different story… King Arthur is not a King. It was not set in a time of your standard “middle ages” but some 1000 years prior (I think around 600 AD). Guinevere was not a princess, and the other knights of the “round table” are from various other countries and Merlin is not a magician.
So this is supposed to be the tale of King Arthur? Ok, maybe they decided to go with a more “historical” telling of the tale, or perhaps it was more of a “creative license” that the writer David Franzoni decided to change things up a little. But at what point does a story where you change some of the key elements become a different story? This movie was an example of that.
First off, I didn’t mind this movie, and will give it a yellow light rating. I’ve definitely seen worse movies this year. I also enjoy the whole fantasy genre and tales of swords and sorcery. Knights heading into battle to defend king, country, or honor, etc… So maybe my opinion is slightly skewed, and if others are giving this film a red light I can certainly understand it.
The acting? It was ok I guess. Clive Owen was a little bit too haughty or perhaps dry would be a better term. Kiera Knightly was also just ok – more on this in a minute. I did enjoy the one role of one of the knights who played a loud crude role, this was fun. Lancelot… I just couldn’t understand what he was doing for most of the movie. The movie couldn’t seem to focus on one character, and tried to show several points of view. This led to a weak character development.
That was part of the problem in identifying the knights. I don’t think most of them were even called by name. Their names are listed in the credits, but I could not tell you who played what. I also kept confusing Lancelot with Tristan for some reason too.
As much as Kiera Knightly did a good job in Pirates of the Caribbean, I found her character in this movie a bit unbelievable. She was supposed to be a princess, but in this movie she was supposed to be a female warrior (apparently this has some historical info behind it… whatever). She can’t weigh more than 90lbs soaking wet, and here she is fighting hand-to-hand combat with big brawly guys twice her size. She was supposed to be good with a bow, and this I could have believed, but the hand-to-hand combat was a bit of a joke.
To sum things up here: mediocre acting, confusing character roles, totally different storyline, and some confusing storyline elements. The only people I can recommend this movie to are those who enjoy fantasy, sword and sorcery movies. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy really proved that a fantasy movie can be a good movie, but King Arthur was a big step backwards.
Jef
PS> It was very difficult to watch this movie also and try not to think about Monty Python. I just kept waiting to see a guy in the background banging two coconuts together.
