"King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" Could've Been Good

King Vortigern

  

Sir Bedivere

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword could've been good. The first ten minutes actually are. It's like the best parts of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. There are even wizards, big-ass elephants and plenty of swords. But then it fast-forwards about 20 years through Arthur's childhood and adolescence until it settles on him as a street-smart adult.

See, there are two stories about two different generations. The first one, about King Uther Pendragon, is damn good. The second, about his son, Arthur, is where the movie goes from sugar to sh#t. It's a Guy Ritchie movie and it  basically turns into Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels in Middle Earth. Lock, Stock is a great movie but the combination doesn't fit at all. The thing is, Uther -- who only gets 10 minutes -- is the more interesting one. His story would've made a better movie. Arthur's supposed to be a tough and relatable man of the people, blah, blah, blah, but between the two of them he's the boring one. And he's got nothing on Jon Snow, Aragorn or even Robb Stark.

There is a section later on that's pretty good too -- when Arthur travels through the "Dark Lands", which are filled with giant rats, bats and snakes. But it doesn't last long. I will say that the revelation as to how the legendary sword, Excalibur, got stuck in the stone in the first place is pretty clever.

The only thing that's consistently good for the duration of the movie is the villain -- King Vortigern. He's evil as sh#t. Who knew Jude Law was so great at being so bad? With his hunger for power and ruthlessness he'd find himself sitting on the Iron Throne without breaking a sweat. He doesn't have any dragons but he is a king, in command of an army, who also happens to be a practicing mage -- basically, a wizard.

The studio hopes this is just the first of a six-film series but they're gonna have to tighten way up if they wanna squeeze a franchise outta this thing. The movie's coming to a theater near you on May 12 but you might wanna just wait for it to hit Netflix.

Originally Posted 4/28/17

Related:



John's Early Review of "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" 





"Logan" is Better Than All of the Other X-Men Movies Combined