King Arthur - Unrated Director's Cut

-Touchstone (2004)

Summary

This is the real story of King Arthur and how he appeared in a crappy film.

My Thoughts

King Arthur is a prime example that I live in a cave and haven’t see any films released in the last four years. I’ve finally decided to start catching up on my backlog so I gave this DVD a spin and I feel like I’ve been tricked. About half way through watching King Arthur, I looked down at the DVD case and saw that Jerry Bruckheimer was one of the producers. Talk about needing a cold shower. I couldn't believe that I'd been unwittingly watching a Bruckheimer film, but it made sense why the film was sucking so badly up to that point.

King Arthur is a different take on the famous Arthurian legend that is at least semi-familiar to most of us in the Western world. You could almost consider King Arthur the Star Wars of the Middle Ages. There have been theories that tie the King Arthur of legend to a real living person over the years. In most of these theories he’s in early Briton during its Roman occupation. This film version riffs off of these theories and attempts to blend in elements of the mythos like the figure of Merlin and the sword in the stone into what could be considered a more realistic version of the “real” King Arthur. Unfortunately, the first major flaw with this whole concept is that they try to tack an authenticity onto to the film. The line that really sticks out to me on the DVD case is, “The Untold True Story that Inspired the Legend.” What it really should say is, “horseshit for sale.” There are numerous historical facts that the filmmakers ignore, which makes it even the more obvious that they’re pulling the “real” King Arthur stuff out of their asses. Oh well, it worked for Braveheart.

In King Arthur, Arthur is the leader of a group of Knights that must protect the Roman section of Britony. Arthur’s knights are basically indentured in their roles, each having to serve fifteen years before they can go back home. Coincidence of all coincidences; their fifteen years are up when the film begins! Basically, King Arthur starts off like a cop movie where every single cop is only one day from retiring. A bishop arrives to give them their walking papers, but of course there’s a big catch. The bishop, who is evil like every single Christian in the film, informs Arthur that he needs to go on one last mission before the Roman Empire will give the boys their travel visas and before Arthur himself can go back home to Rome. This is the perfect set up for the viewer to suffer though dozens of references like, “you know what I’m going to do when I get home?” World War II movie lines.

The mission is about as nonsensical as the set up for the film. The knights are to go to the north beyond Hadrian’s Wall to a Roman villa and escort the Pope’s Godson back to safety. At first I thought this was a neat way to get the action going, until I actually thought about it. Hadrian’s Wall marked the northern point of the Roman occupation of Briton. They act like it will be nearly impossible to go up there and come back alive, so how in bloody hell can there be a villa up there in the first place then? King Arthur is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, that’s how.

The film actually becomes entertaining for great stretches during the rescue. The Saxon invaders are portrayed as the evilest evil incarnate and it works for this type of film. They find out about the villa and head that way just as Arthur decides to not only take the boy and his father, but all their servants as well so the whole crew is slowed down. This leads to the best scene of the film. To give their makeshift caravan more time to escape, Arthur and his knights square off against part of the Saxon army on a frozen lake. However, there’s not enough of this to sustain my interest in the rest of King Arthur. You’re forced to sit through being hit on the head over issues of freedom and what each man’s duty and destiny is. These topics have already been done to death in Braveheart and Gladiator; there really isn’t anything new here to separate King Arthur from those other films.

I must note that the Director’s Cut version does not include the theatrical cut. Since I’ve never saw King Arthur in the theaters (thank god), I must rely on my web partner in crime for info on this area. Shawn says that the Director's Cut is a lot better than the theatrical cut. It’s hard to believe that King Arthur was actually worse at some point. He did say that there’s a lot more blood and gore and I have to be thankful for that, because that’s the most enjoyable part of the film. Too bad they have all the horrible dialogue in-between the stabbings and beheadings.

So who’s to blame for this mess? Certainly it isn’t the actors. Clive Owen makes a fairly decent Arthur and if anything you get to look at Kira Knightly some more, although I had a difficult time locating her breasts in her warrior costume at the end. Did she misplace them before shooting?* I really enjoyed Mads Mikkelsen who played a great Tristram. By the way, what the hell kind of name is Mads? Regardless, the director can’t really be blamed either as it’s really well done, except for some poorly done “arty” shots. When Tristam (if I’m wrong about who this is in the film, I don’t care) dies and sees the hawk flying away, that’s like symbolism for dummies right there. I really have to lay all the blame on the horrible script for my dislike of this film and Jerry Bruckheimer. We must always blame Jerry Bruckheimer for everything.

If you like this film, buy it. I grow weary of this review. To take a cue from King Arthur, I will command my own destiny and end the review by saying that King Arthur sucks.

Extras

I know that you’re thinking that I’m going to tear apart the extras because he didn’t like the movie. Well, you’re wrong! Sort of… I just won’t go into them as in depth as I normally would, but I will list what you get.

The motion menus are worth noting, because they’re a lot better than some of the ones I’ve seen in awhile.

There’s a commentary by director Antoine Fuqua. Fans of King Arthur might find the commentary interesting, but to me it was freakishly boring. Comments like, "King Arthur is a British hero” doesn’t really keep me wanting to watch this thing.

“Blood on the Land: Forging King Arthur” is your basic behind-the-scenes making-of used to promote the film. Basically, it’s little more than a commercial.

“Cast and Filmaker Roundatble” is a discussion of the film. You know, I hate when actors start talking about history. Shut up, you don’t know anything.

Usually, one of my favorite extras is an alternative ending. The one included on this DVD would have made the film a lot worse with even more “choose your own fate” hammer blows to the head. There’s some director commentary that you can turn on to waste even more of your life.

“Knight Vision” is a trivia track that plays along with the film.

“Producers Photo Gallery” is just what it says it is.

Finally, there’s an Xbox demo for the King Arthur videogame. I played it and it seems more fun than the movie, but that’s not saying much.

Score:

Film: 3.0

Extras: 6.5

Edition: 7.0

-Paul

 *This is officially the meanest thing I’ve ever said so far on this site.