A Guy Ritchie film typically contains a number of key features.
– His mates.
– Quick cuts over a jaunty soundtrack.
– British slang.
In a 20th century heist film these lend themselves quite well — not so much in fantasy land.
We find ourselves in a land of swords and sorcery, as if all the tales of King Arthur had come true. The country is being ravished by an evil warlock Mordred and only the king Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) can save the land. He does so by jumping onto an enormous elephant (think Lord of the Rings), walking through fire and slaying the foe without so much as a finger being lifted. He then teleports out of the elephant to safety. Well, he doesn’t exactly teleport but there’s no other way he could have escaped as his only point of egress is surrounded by warlocks, fire and chains.
After about 5 minutes of spoken exposition and 15 minutes of one of the female characters asking what’s going on, we learn that Uther’s brother Vortigen (Jude Law) has betrayed the king and usurped the throne. A lot happens in this time span and it isn’t made immediately obvious the order in which it happens. Skipping ahead, we learn later on that the Vortigen sacrifices his wives to an octopus woman (think Ursula from Little Mermaid) who lives in a cavern under the castle to gain the power of a fire demon. It was with this power that he defeated Uther, but not before Uther does some flip manoeuvre with Excalibur and kills himself with it, causing it to become stuck in his back and fall to the bottom of the water. The rest of the movie hangs on the fact that Vortigen didn’t just remove the sword but leaves it to become stuck in Uther’s back for ~30 years. Oh and while this battle between Vortigen and Uther is taking place, a young Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) is literally ten feet away, very slowly drifting off in a tiny wooden boat to end up in Londinium.
Cut to Londinium. Arthur is working as a goon of some description, running the streets and making money. We get a couple of Guy Ritchie Quick Cut Montages (r) (the audience couldn’t help but laugh how out of place these were) showing his transcendence from street urchin to mob boss and another showing how he dealt with some vikings. Basically showing us that no one bosses him about. The police then proceed to boss him about and he’s on his way to pull the sword from the stone.
We then bare witness to the strangest casting of all. David Beckham appears as some hot shot guard and they try to disguise him behind a fire scar, but if you look closely you can make out the extremely recognisable football star underneath. No point sugar coating this, his acting was bad and the audience were outright laughing at how ridiculous this was. I wouldn’t have minded a word or two but they give him several lines.
Arthur pulls the sword out, collapses by the almighty power of the sword and is captured. The idea of the sword being a character is quite an interesting concept, they tried to pull it off but it didn’t really work. To prove his power, Uther wishes for Arther to be executed but he’s saved in the nick of time by a mysterious female mage (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey). The mage isn’t given a name but is central to most of the plot points in the movie. To give some credit, they didn’t shoehorn in a love plot between the mage and any of the male characters.
During his escape, Arthur comes across some of his old cronies. They’re all completely forgettable and have no real relation to the plot, the only exceptions being that one character who becomes injured and interrogated after the others leave him in an unlocked house in the middle of the city and Aiden Gillen, who plays a character that bears striking resemblance to Littlefinger with a strange accent. Oh, and there’s a Chinese guy named George, who they kept naming with a hint of irony.
At some point, Arthur has to go alone to the deadlands and prove his worth by putting the sword on a stone. How he knew where he was going and how he didn’t die is anyone’s guess. He can’t use the sword as it has too much power and he has to understand the power by putting it on a stone. I don’t know, this part didn’t really go anywhere.
The mage is captured and Arthur has to turn himself in for her to be free. For some reason they let her go before Arthur arrives and she orchestrates an enormous snake to be flown into the kings chambers and kill everyone (except the king, for some reason). Arthur has to do battle with the Vortigern but not before he sacrifices his wife to become the fire god. For some reason they’re transported from under the castle onto an island to fight. The CGI for these parts were extremely impressive and the boss foreboding.
With the boss defeated and Arthur taking his place as the king, a painful scene takes place where his cronies are being knighted and there’s a large circular wooden object in the room. There’s a good two minutes of “what is it” jokes with no punchline. We get it, King Arthur and the round table, very funny.
In general, this was not a good movie. Far too many plot points occurred for no discernible reason other than to move the plot along or the mage pulling something out of thin air. Nevermind that the Guy Ritchie motifs simply don’t fit the world of fantasy.
Some closing observations: the fire lord looked exactly like a Dark Souls boss, the Victorian era garb that some blokes were wearing in the forest was a bit out of place and I couldn’t unsee that Arthur had the exact same stitching as a baseball.