King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

This is Guy Ritchie all day long. Guy doesn't do subtle. What he does do, is more often or not, deliver a visually entertaining feast for the eyes sprinkled with action and humour.

Charlie Hunnam was an interesting choice for Arthur. I became a fan of his during Sons of Anarchy but some of his other work has been a little hit and miss. Initially I wasn't enjoying him but as the film moved forward I took to his portrayal of the character.

For me Excalibur is the bench mark telling of this tale in film, David Gemmel has a series of novels that offer a great version of the story as well. The point being is that this movie has a lot to compete with and to be fair it does a pretty good job, its lots of fun :)

Will keep it short and simple. If you don't get/understand the (British) humour (i.e you don't think the jokes are funny), dialogue and fast "flashbacky" editing style presented in Lock Stock and Snatch, you will hate this movie. Easy as that. For us who understand what constitutes a Ritchie movie will be more likely than not, like the movie.

*Minor Spoilers Ahead* The movie beings at the start of a big battle. The Mage army is smashing through King Uther's defences. Uther (Eric Bana) decides to take the battle into his own hands, despite his brother Vortigern's (Jude Law) reservations. Uther jumps onto the leading war elephant and slays the Mage king, ending the battle. After the battle, there are conflicting arguments on how to deal with the fallout. Previously the feuding kingdoms lived in harmony so some of Uther's generals: Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou) and Bill (Aidan Gillen) want to seek peace while Vortigern proposes hunting down the Mages and killing them. Uther agrees that a temporary peace should be reached and while some leave the meeting happy, others are angry and will not back down. Uther senses this and packs up his wife and his son Arthur (later played by Charlie Hunnam) to leave the castle at night.

If you've looked at the reviews for this movie, they're really scathing. I would never argue that this movie is a complete success but critics have been too quick to slam this movie. There's some really good stuff in here. I tend to like most of Guy Ritchie's movies and one of the biggest reasons is that his characters have tons of camaraderie. This is often helped by some stellar dialogue too. They make you laugh but it also helps you believe in the relationships between the characters. That was the strongest part of King Arthur for me. My favourite scenes weren't the big action set pieces, they were the parts where Arthur and his crew were taking care of business in Londinium or sabotaging the villain's operation. Other than the occasional slip up with modern day phrasing (I don't think anyone said razzle-dazzle in the medieval ages?) it reminded me of Jason Statham's dialogue in Snatch. It was generally solid and I laughed throughout the movie.

Guy Ritchie has been at this long enough that he's developed his own way doing action. In some of his projects it works great (Sherlock Holmes has some really great action scenes) and in other projects it doesn't. I thought the actions scenes in Legend of the Sword were good in some areas and they weren't so great in others. I saw this with a friend and she said the action reminded her of video games. She's not wrong. When Arthur uses Excalibur, its like unlocking a special ability in a video game. The CGI is decent (it better be with a $175 million budget) but the movie also can't seem to decide how far into fantasy it wants to go. So the action is a mixed bag, the ending goes too crazy but it didn't affect the overall grade too much.

The acting is also pretty mixed. I actually really liked Charlie Hunnam as Arthur. He's had a tough road transitioning to movies but he had the charisma and the right physicality to pull this role off. I also really liked some of the actors in supporting parts: Aiden Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, Neil Maskell and Kingsley Ben-Adir are all respectively funny and they were believable as a crew. Getting into some of the performances I didn't like as much, I don't want to blame Jude Law because he was trying but Vortigern was a lacklustre character for me. I also thought Astrid Bergès-Frisbey was weak. Her character seemed like something that could have been cut out and she was really wooden as The Mage.

This movie reminds me of 2 other Warner Bros. releases from last year that had a mixed measure of success; The Legend of Tarzan and Suicide Squad. Both of those movie were completely trashed by critics and were flawed products. But they also had some really cool parts and strong aspects that people just threw aside when judging the movie. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword falls into that category for me. The action is mixed, the acting is mixed and the story takes some pretty big liberties from the King Arthur legend and the historical period. But you have some great dialogue, interesting characters, a decent leading performance and some big action set pieces that are impressive. This wasn't the train wreck that I expected and if you're interested in seeing this, don't be afraid to give it a shot. I would be closer to a 6.5/10 but I'll round up to a 7/10.

Wow, this is one heck of a movie. I was overwhelmed with some of the scenes, especially the fighting scenes in the beginning, the middle and also in the end. There was a wonderful opening credit scene which I felt was very awesome. It lasted probably only 5 minutes but it really impressed me. And, the movie also had some brief parts which were fun to see, like the scene when Arthur was telling the story about the Vikings. Out of the whole fighting scenes, the one that I enjoyed most was in the middle which I felt was rather breathtaking and having an ultimate amazing ending.

Apart from the cool action sequences, the movie also had some dramatic moments and surprises. I really think that the way Guy Ritchie directed this movie made it very enjoyable. I did feel some similarities with other movies that he directed like the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in 2011, especially in the part of using pieces of flash backs to explain something.

I think the special effects to the movie was very good, which should not be a surprise considering it has a USD 175 million budget. My only worry is with such hefty budget, it may not be having a large profit since the movie itself might not appeal to some hardline fans of the folklore of King Arthur, Excalibur, mages and so on, due to the rather unusual way of story telling. Some people might also feel that the movie lacks the cruelty & violence of a medieval era war kind of movie such as Kingdom of Heaven or Game of Thrones TV series. For my personal view though, this movie was just nice since its attraction is certainly on the way the story being told, and again, its fighting sequence.

The sound effects of the movie were very good. Some background music truly gave extra sense of suspense or sadness and so on. The duration of 2 hours was just perfect to me, and I honestly felt there was no dull moment. There was no post-credit scene for you to wait, except if you enjoy listening to the soundtrack song & music. Before I forgot, there was a cameo appearance of the popular soccer player David Beckham. Let's see if you noticed him.

So for those who want to enjoy a nice action adventure film in the medieval period with some sword and sorcery plus the background of King Arthur with the knights of the round table, then you would definitely enjoy this one (especially if you are a fan of Guy Ritchie's works). Now if you are not a fan of this kind of movie or you prefer a more bloody/violent movie, then perhaps this one would be a bit soft.

For my complete review, pls have a look at michaelnontonmulu.blogspot.co.id

Let's be clear: this contains very few aspects of the actual Arthur legend. They probably should have just gone for a wacky original medieval fantasy film instead. That being said, I didn't expect Ritchie's style to work this well here. And he hasn't been this crazy since Snatch. Some montages are so breathless, fast and innovative as far as editing and soundtrack go, it's a pleasure. Sure, the plot follows the genre conventions more or less, and the finale is a bit heavy on CGI. On the other hand the assassination attempt sequence is fantastic and the portrayal of magic pretty cool. Hell, I had fun with this.