But that time is up and I can finally talk about it!
As I said, on April 27th I managed to catch a
sneaky preview of the film, with thanks to ShowFilmFirst. I had seen the
trailers once or twice, but was never gripped, and I don’t think I would have
bothered with seeing this film had I not had this chance.
The trailer gives no indication of what the story is about,
or how it develops and so on, so I did have no idea how this film was going to
play out once I’d headed in and the film began. King Arthur is about Arthur
(funny that…), played by the wonderful Charlie Hunnam, and how he lost his
right as heir when he was a young boy, and was essentially left in the streets
to fend for himself, and with the help of his friends, or workers, having no
idea who he was, and he got on – obviously, just not with what should have been
set out for him. Eventually we see the big scene where Arthur removed the sword
from stone and it then becomes his duty to accept the hand he was dealt and
overthrow the already ruling, King Vortigern (Jude Law).
I mean that seems straight forward, right? Not at all surprising for a film called King Arthur? Well, correct, nothing about this story was surprising, but at the same time it was. Written and directed by Guy Ritchie the traditional medieval story was adapted to fit a modern audience (in terms of language use most noticeably), I think very well. In addition to this, it took on the responsibility of including an element of fantasy.
Through the film this idea grew on me, and eventually paid off, but at the start I felt a bit lost in regards to some of the creatures… why is that elephant so big? Who’s that spooky guy they keep showing? Then it all wrapped up, the story began to unfold and it all settled down and ended up making (somewhat) perfect sense.
The locations that were selected, or created for this film were taken advantage
of in some scenes, and parts were shot great. Alongside the musical score that
was popped in it gave the film a certain ‘feel’, a sense of almost… uniqueness.
I didn’t feel like I was watching something I had seen before because the nitty
gritty aspects were quite individual. From reading other reviews, I have seen the Guy Ritchie has
repeatedly been named the best thing about this film, and everyone is right. He
is, and did we expect anything less? I am a fan of his work, and I think if
nothing else – the fact that he is involved in this film is reason enough to
watch it.
If you didn’t guess already from me calling Charlie Hunnam
wonderful…. I thought he was wonderful. I was excited to see him in this, and
he didn’t bloody let me down did he! He was casted perfectly to be honest, and
it was a memorable performance, for which credit is due. The rest of the cast…
it did its job, Jude Law is Jude Law, we don’t expect a bad performance, and we
don’t get one. Did I believe he was the baddie? Yes, sure, the performance was
fine. But other performances weren’t as particularly favourable as that of
Hunnam, and some were even expected... of course we're going to have Aidan Gillen helping the lads out in a medieval themed film!
The issue King Arthur had, wasn’t necessarily the acting, it was more the
pacing. Don’t get me wrong we had some great fight scenes, they packed them
out, and they were great… but at the same time some were long. In fact, some
scenes were really long, and I felt like I was in the cinema for ages.
This film wasn’t bad in the slightest, and now that I’ve had
that time to digest what I’d seen before writing up, and being surprised with
the trailers popping up everywhere again, I’d like to see it again. I think I would
buy this, and would watch it (if I could dedicate to the what felt like 5
hours, again).
If you’re on the fence about this film, watch it. You never
know – you might unexpectedly enjoy it. Overall, I’d give it a solid 6/10. It had its flaws, but had its fair share of
redeeming qualities too. Not a bad film after all!
CINEMATES - S
CINEMATES - S
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