Technical assessment: 3
Moral assessment: 3
CINEMA rating: V14
After defeating
Mordred and his minions, King Uther (Bana), the good and powerful King of the
Britons and master of Excalibur is betrayed and murdered by his envious brother
Vortigern (Law). The child prince Arthur (Hunnam) is safely swept by the river
into the brothel where prostitutes find, care and raise him. Arthur grows up
tough and cunning. When the river reveals the Excalibur, Vortigern has young
men rounded up and forced to try to extract the sword to he can flush out the
only threat—Arthur. Meanwhile, Arthur is captured and successfully pulls the
sword Excalibur out from the rock. He then discovers his real identity as well
as his destiny to defeat Vortigern and free Camelot. But the questions remains:
Is Arthur willing to do so?
Richie’s
version is at most fun. It intertwines the classic legend with non linear
editing techniques familiar to action spy films, avant-garde designs and
completely different character personalities. That he tried to impute
revisionist visions in the classic tale is commendable. It did away with
Camelot’s romance and chivalry and made the well-loved ancient characters
interact with modern concepts of society and storytelling. But his brave attempt delivered nothing more
than a muddled version with outrageously cheesy dialogue and a series of scenes
that rushed for two hours. Perhaps the
film could have worked if it was not packaged as a King Arthur story.
King
Arthur: Legend of the Sword
threads on two main themes: sacrifice and responsibility. We see two sides of
sacrifice—the self-serving and the selfless of Vortigern and Uther,
respectively. The former consumes and destroys, the latter liberates and
unites. Sacrifice gains its worth when its motivation is not the self. In the same manner, another person's
sacrifice reciprocates a call to stand up and become the leader or game changer
you are called to be. In other words, a selfless sacrifice begets a commitment
to responsibility… again not to the self but for the common good. Needless to
say, the film reiterates a simple and straightforward message—that there is
good in every person regardless of his background. On the other hand,
education, social stature, and authority do not make a person good. It is still
a matter of choice. While Ritchie tries really hard to deliver a solid message,
he does so with an exaggerated storytelling and unconvincing characterization.
We doubt if the audience can wade through the confused plot and flamboyant
production. But nonetheless, we did say the film—with Pemberton’s thumping
music—is a lot of fun.
