King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Guy Ritchie brings his unique spin on the Merlin legend in “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”

King Arthur is another iconic character that has gone through various cinematic reinventions and reinterpretations over the years, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything that measures up to the the noisy, violent, confusing retelling as Legend of the Sword.

Charlie Hunman from Sons of Anarchy stars as the titular character who survives an attack on Camelot as a boy and then washes up in the hands of another English city. His new protectors teach him how to fight and he eventually establishes a reputation to where he can return to his home country to bring down the enemy forces that have enslaved it.

He’s joined in his quest by a motley crew including Djimon Hounsou as his second-in-command. Their mission involves a series of complicated obligatory plot developments on their way back which I won’t even bother going into detail because it feels too convoluted and silly.

Jude Law stars as the villainous Vortigen who has laid siege to Camelot and of course all of the action leads up to a one-on-one showdown between him and Arthur. Law does what he can with the material, but it seems to me that the exchanges between the two amount to nothing more than a second-rate version of Harry and Voldemort.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword made me wish for a fast-forward button for much of its 126 minute run-time. Instead I just had to sit there and take it as I was pummeled with noisy action, one-dimensional characters, and a story that features far too many events that I kept losing track of who was who and doing what. Did I mention it gets carried away with its special effects as well?

Director Guy Ritchie who has given us some pretty entertaining movies such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Sherlock Holmes seems to be going through the motions with a film that will be forgotten two minutes after exiting the theater. Don’t hail this King.

Grade: D
(Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, some suggestive content and brief strong language.)
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