Three stars. Rated PG-13, for fantasy action and violence, and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.12.17
British director Guy Ritchie has
spent the last decade putting his breakneck, heavily stylized spin on
pop-culture icons, with diminishing results.
His two takes on Sherlock Holmes
were mostly fun, thanks to the sassy pairing of Robert Downey Jr. (Holmes) and
Jude Law (Watson); the re-boot of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ... less so.
 |
| The mysterious Mage (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) watches as Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) contemplates the powerful sword Excalibur, which unleashes ghastly memories every time he places both hands on its hilt. |
Which brings us to this
re-imagined Arthur Pendragon, Camelot and Excalibur: pretty much the only
elements of traditional Arthurian legend that have survived in this
senses-assaulting treatment by Ritchie and co-scripters David Dobkin, Joby
Harold and Lionel Wigram. Their medieval adventure kicks off with a reasonably
compelling first act, as the saga’s major players are introduced, but soon goes
off the rails and ultimately succumbs to wretched excess during the overwrought
finale.
This is King Arthur by way of Lord of the Rings: a magic-laden fantasy
that ultimately overpowers its puny mortal characters. When opponents can send
mountain-size elephants and coliseum-size serpents against each other, it’s
impossible to establish an emotional connection with anything or anybody;
Ritchie and his fellow scribes don’t exercise enough care to give us reasonable
rules or consistency.
It’s all stuff and nonsense ...
and, in Ritchie’s hands, hyper-accelerated and very loud stuff and nonsense.
The film opens with an explosive
prologue, the malevolent wizard Mordred having lain waste to nearly all of
England. Only well-fortified Camelot remains, but 300-foot siege elephants are
poised to make short work of its walls. It’s an awesome sequence, orchestrated
with breathtaking verisimilitude by visual effects supervisor Nick Davis, and
ferociously paced by Ritchie and editor James Herbert.
All seems lost, but wait! The
honorable King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) wields the mighty sword Excalibur,
which instantaneously turns the tide. (Handy, that.)
Alas, in the aftermath, Uther
fails to perceive the perfidy within; his brother Vortigern (Jude Law),
secretly coveting the crown, unleashes his own vile magic. (Really, you’d think
that Uther would have known that a brother given the name Vortigern couldn’t be
anything but evil.)
The king and his wife perish, but
not before sending their young son Arthur to safety in a boat: an oft-employed
plot point that dates from Moses to Luke Skywalker, by way of Krypton’s Kal-El.
The boy is raised by the kindly
young women in a Londinium brothel, wholly unaware of his heritage; he comes of
age during the best of Ritchie’s fast-paced, smash-cut montage sequences, given
even more pizzazz by Daniel Pemberton’s throbbing orchestral score. No
question: Thus far, we can’t help being dazzled by Ritchie’s mesmerizing
filmmaking.
The director’s other signature
gimmick is the use of eye-blink flashbacks and flash-forwards, to show action
being described by a character in the present moment; it’s a clever touch,
although one that annoys with overuse.
Meanwhile...
Vortigern has become king, and —
in the manner of all despots — turned Camelot into a city of terror, its
downtrodden inhabitants routinely abused by the thuggish Blackleg soldiers who
maintain order.
Having grown into adulthood (now
played by Charlie Hunnam), Arthur has developed street-fighting prowess under
the tutelage of melee master George (Tom Wu). Arthur spends his days protecting
the brothel women and conducting low-level acts of resistance against the local
Blacklegs. These defiant bits of skullduggery are conducted alongside his best
friends: Wet Stick (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Back Lack (Neil Maskell) and the
latter’s young son, Blue (Bleu Landau).
Back in Camelot, Vortigern’s
uneasy alliance with dark magic is coming unstuck; the long-unseen sword
Excalibur, buried to its hilt in stone, has risen from the depths and been
exposed to all. Vortigern cannot wield the sword as long as Arthur lives, and
so the evil king sends his Blackleg army to scour the land, imprison all young
men of likely age, and force each to try removing the weapon from its rocky
sheath.
The fabled sword’s mere
reappearance, meanwhile, has stirred rumblings throughout England: rumors of
the “one true king” who might rescue them all. We thus meet the key figures in
a clandestine Resistance: Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou), once Uther’s most trusted
advisor; Goosefat Bill (Aidan Gillen, recognized from TV’s Game of Thrones), a long-distance bow-and-arrow marksman; and Rubio
(Freddie Fox) and Percival (Craig McGinlay).
Along with their unusual
companion: the ethereal, cloaked Mage (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey), one of the few
“good” sorcerers remaining after the majority have been exterminated by
Vortigern.
These Resistance characters are
drawn to Arthur and his mates, at which point Ritchie and his co-writers
establish their story’s most intriguing plot point: Arthur has no interest —
none whatsoever — in his birthright. He rejects it utterly, eschewing Excalibur
and wanting only to return to his “normal” life. It’s a solid bit of dramatic
conflict, which Hunnam plays with conviction.
Indeed, Hunnam is a credibly
scruffy, cheeky, rough-and-tumble Arthur: a young man accustomed to making his
own luck, and unwilling to blithely trust his new companions ... and particularly
the spooky-looking hooded woman who seems to have a particular bond with
animals. Hunnam is far more believable here as Arthur, than as real-life
explorer Percy Fawcett, in the recently released Lost City of Z. (Actors must hate it when their films debut
simultaneously, and they wind up competing with themselves.)
The elf-eyed, gamine-like
Bergès-Frisbey is an arresting presence as the Mage: easily the story’s most
intriguing character, next to Arthur himself. She gives off an otherworldly
aura that feels appropriately mystical, the actress seeming to inhabit a space
that isn’t quite part of the mortal world.
Law, all sneers and scowls, is a
sublimely Machiavellian villain, with a calculating grin and predatory gaze.
Vortigern runs an impressive emotional gamut: at one moment terrifying, with
the intensity of his ferocity; at the next anguishing over the horrible price
required of his unholy alliance with dark forces.
Alas, the increasing presence of
those magical enhancements overwhelms and eventually smothers the story’s
essential human element. The scheming, manipulative Vortigern is far more
interesting than what becomes of him in the final act, just as Hunnam’s
provocatively conflicted Arthur abruptly vanishes once he morphs into the
superhero who wields Excalibur.
The depth of feeling shared by
Back Lack and his young son Blue, as events proceed, resonates more than what
eventually transpires between Arthur and Vortigern.
Most of the supporting characters
remain little more than their names and some snarky dialogue, although Gillen
rises above his threadbare material and gives Goosefat Bill plenty of impertinent
personality.
The script is particularly
shallow with respect to the other female characters; the sudden significance of
Maggie (Annabelle Wallis), one of Camelot’s castle maids, comes as a complete
surprise. Uther’s wife Igraine (Poppy Delevignge), and Vortigern’s daughter
Catia (Millie Brady), are little more than afterthoughts.
Ritchie’s aggressive stylistic
tics and twitches eventually become tedious, and he flat-out loses control of
the film during its bombastic finale: yet another fantasy undone by its
protracted, world-shattering, effects-laden climax. By this point we’ve long
forgotten the cheeky impudence that seemed so droll in Ritchie’s first act;
it’s a shame to watch a director so carelessly squander such promising
storytelling.
This
particular sword probably should have remained in its stone.
No comments:
Post a Comment