Netflix
Too many giant elephants but good take on Arthur
I have loved Guy Ritchie's visual expertise, and unique storytelling talent since I saw Lock, Stock and Barrel in the cinema many years ago. He has outdone himself with this beautiful Fantasy film, which I think could have made a good Netflix fantasy series instead. There is so much plot, both in the movie and in general around King Arthur, that they could easily had filled up several seasons of quality storytelling.
What I like best about the film (and would like to have discovered more in depth in a series) is that King Arthur is not a dedicated "do-gooder" but a rich pimp. Yes, he has a code, possibly a good heart, but mostly he is just trying to get by and have no desire to become a king or challenge the ruler and fight evil.
Why did someone stick a sword into a rock, makes no sense...
If you are an old fart like me, you are likely familiar with roleplaying games and the alignment terminology, then Artur and his friends and associates are very much of Neutral alignment but are caught up in events set in motion by mostly evil aligned characters.
There were also things I did not like, some of the visuals, especially the look of the "demon form" of the evil king looked so much like a computer game (even though they looked good) that it for me was a distraction. The same was Arthur’s journey on a magical plane full of giant sized animals, again this seemed so much like the "leveling up experience" of a computer game, and though fun from a meta plane perspective it distracted me from enjoying it.
But the worst thing for me was the giant elephants in the intro sequence. They were at least to me too much like the ones in Lord of The Rings movie, and for no reason. They could easily have created the same effect by using some other less used "monster" or something else they came up with themselves, and then it would not have ruined that sequence for me. There might be giant elephants in the original King Arthur legends, if so I apologize for this, but I have never seen them before with King Artur and they looked almost cut out of a LotR movie.
It was fun to see David Beckham in a minor role as an "evil knight", and in general the actors did a good job and visually the movie were spectacular. Though (and this is not a critique) Charlie Hunnam who plays Arthur personally reminds me a bit too much of a good guy a used to know. It’s like "hey, that’s not Arthur it Christoffer!" Then again it is not a bad match as Christoffer likes fantasy and sword fighting (and Charlie Hunnam did a decent job of portraying King Arthur, don't get me wrong).
/Rune S. Nielsen