King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - "The Would Be Success That Flops" (Film Review)
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| Charlie Hunnam in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) |
You know its a bad sign when you get to the theater on the opening night of a film, and there's not one other person in the theater. Although that changed by showtime, the turnout for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword on Friday was quite disappointing. Even after seeing King Arthur's Rotten Tomatoes score of 27% on Friday morning, I was not deterred from seeing it. I recalled first watching the trailer, months before, and held on to the hope that it might not disappoint. After all, it had the ingredients for a successful recipe: Guy Ritchie, Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law and an impressively large budget.
Playing the title role is Charlie Hunnam, best known for his role as Jax Teller on Sons of Anarchy and fresh off the well-received, The Lost City of Z. Although some have criticized the casting, stating that Hunnam did not have the caliber of fame to lead the film to success, I disagree. In fact, I quite enjoyed his formidable yet cheeky take on the character. As for the rest of the cast, Jude Law was a fitting choice for playing the power-hungry king of Camelot. I've always been a Jude Law fan, and his performance definitely doesn't disappoint. Last of my comments on casting choices is with respect to Astrid Berges-Frisbey who plays "The Mage." My first problem is with the fact that her character had no specific name. At first, it seemed as though "The Mage" referred to a group of people with magical powers. Yet, you realize later (if you're lucky) that that's not the case. Why have a character with no name? This isn't Dr. Seuss, so what's this Thing #1 and Thing #2 business? Moving on to the performance; it was bad. Bad on a distracting level. To her defense, the number of close-up shots showing how "The Mage" works her magic was irritating. To Ritchie's defense, however, it's clear that the character was quite the mess, originally written as Guinevere and re-written to "The Mage." At that point, it seems that there was nothing but close-up shots left for Ritchie to work with. It's safe to say that changing the character from Guinevere was a huge mistake.
That aside, this is a Guy Ritchie film! With the success of his take on Sherlock Holmes, the King Arthur would-be-franchise had the potential of being Ritchie's next hit. So, what went wrong? Well, we've already touched on the re-writes to the script, which made the story hard to follow and left the majority of the characters undeveloped. The next problem, in my opinion, is the film's special effects. The film opens with a grand action scene full of fighting and medieval creatures and is one of the more epic parts of the film. Yet, a few too many post-production hours made the film look more fantastical and CGI-ed than needed which, to an extent, cheapened the final product. There is such thing as too much CGI, folks! Apart from a couple of Ritchie's signature quick cuts and
high-speed dialogue scenes, and the mostly epic introduction the story lacked
substance and the film dragged on a bit too long.
Let's talk about the non-film issues. The movie went through three changes to the release date (originally intended for a 2016 release) and spent a hefty sum on marketing. At the end of the day, the release date landed right smack in the middle of two huge films; Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opened on May 12th and Alien: Covenant opens on May 19th. This made for some stiff competition for box office dollars and ultimately served as a huge financial blow. To date, King Arthur has made about $15 million domestically (and an equally unimpressive amount internationally) which, for a film with a budget of $175 million, is bad news (not to mention the additional millions spent on marketing).
All in all, the film had potential with a solid cast and a talented director. A mess of a script and too many changes to its release date resulted in a box office failure. I'd say that a spoilers section is unnecessary for this film. However, it's clear from the ending that the film was intended to be the first installment of a franchise, which is looking pretty grim at this point.
I'll end this on a positive note: the soundtrack was pretty epic! Check out "The Devil & the Huntsman" that was used in the trailer - great track!
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Playing the title role is Charlie Hunnam, best known for his role as Jax Teller on Sons of Anarchy and fresh off the well-received, The Lost City of Z. Although some have criticized the casting, stating that Hunnam did not have the caliber of fame to lead the film to success, I disagree. In fact, I quite enjoyed his formidable yet cheeky take on the character. As for the rest of the cast, Jude Law was a fitting choice for playing the power-hungry king of Camelot. I've always been a Jude Law fan, and his performance definitely doesn't disappoint. Last of my comments on casting choices is with respect to Astrid Berges-Frisbey who plays "The Mage." My first problem is with the fact that her character had no specific name. At first, it seemed as though "The Mage" referred to a group of people with magical powers. Yet, you realize later (if you're lucky) that that's not the case. Why have a character with no name? This isn't Dr. Seuss, so what's this Thing #1 and Thing #2 business? Moving on to the performance; it was bad. Bad on a distracting level. To her defense, the number of close-up shots showing how "The Mage" works her magic was irritating. To Ritchie's defense, however, it's clear that the character was quite the mess, originally written as Guinevere and re-written to "The Mage." At that point, it seems that there was nothing but close-up shots left for Ritchie to work with. It's safe to say that changing the character from Guinevere was a huge mistake.
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| Astrid Berges-Frisbey as The Mage in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) |
Let's talk about the non-film issues. The movie went through three changes to the release date (originally intended for a 2016 release) and spent a hefty sum on marketing. At the end of the day, the release date landed right smack in the middle of two huge films; Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opened on May 12th and Alien: Covenant opens on May 19th. This made for some stiff competition for box office dollars and ultimately served as a huge financial blow. To date, King Arthur has made about $15 million domestically (and an equally unimpressive amount internationally) which, for a film with a budget of $175 million, is bad news (not to mention the additional millions spent on marketing).
All in all, the film had potential with a solid cast and a talented director. A mess of a script and too many changes to its release date resulted in a box office failure. I'd say that a spoilers section is unnecessary for this film. However, it's clear from the ending that the film was intended to be the first installment of a franchise, which is looking pretty grim at this point.
I'll end this on a positive note: the soundtrack was pretty epic! Check out "The Devil & the Huntsman" that was used in the trailer - great track!
*****Subscribe to the blog on the top right of the page to be notified about new posts*****
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