It’s always been fitting that director Guy Ritchie’s first name was just the simple ‘Guy’. It’s made him the butt of a few jokes, but it really is such a perfect name for him. He’s the kind of guy who’d watch an episode of The Carebears and only thinks “Not masculine enough”. His Sherlock Holmes was a reinvention of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary character as a meat-fisted brainiac unafraid of a little mano a mano action. His British crime films are filled with brooding, bearded men all shot through a sickly grey-and-blue pallet. Snatch was the last of his films that really had the kind of sense of humor he needs to really succeed. His King Arthur is more of the same. Charlie Hunnam is cast in the titular role, as a hunked-out piece of meat with a few facial scars that wouldn’t turn any of the ladies out of bed. Hunnam’s physicality and sexuality are a big part of this film, and Ritchie’s obsession with the kind of man that makes a proper hero.

Across from him is Jude Law, playing a truly cruel villain that the audience will beg to be defeated. Law is overqualified for this kind of part, and it seems almost like trolling that he couldn’t get the King Arthur part himself. He’s more talented than Hunnam, more charming, and even (I’d dare to say) more handsome. But Law’s looks have always been soft and fragile, too feminine for Ritchie’s tastes. In this and the Sherlock Holmes films, Ritchie is often using Law as a foil for his grizzlier protagonists. Law’s prettiness will always fall short next to the bulging maleness of Hunnam. Law plays Vortigurn, a tyrannical king who gained his thrown by betraying his brother, King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana), using a combination of sabotage and mystical corruption. The mistake Vortigurn makes is allowing Pendragon’s young son, Arthur, to escape, and allowing Pendragon’s powerful sword, Excalibur, to be wedged into a stone that only the rightful heir can pull it out of.

Arthur grows up in a brothel, where he learns the hard-knock way of life, trading with powerful figures looking to get their rocks off. He’s plagued by dreams of his parents’ death, but his memory doesn’t include his actual heritage. When he’s brought before Excalibur, stuck in the stone, no one is more surprised than he is that he’s able to pull the sword out. This catches the attention of Sir Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou) and Goosefat Bill (Aidan Gillen), former followers of Pendragon and now leaders of a resistance movement looking to take down Vortigurn’s oppressive realm. Arthur’s arrival adds more purpose to the resistance’s cause, and the return of the rightful king puts a rise into the people of the kingdom, who have spoken of the Legend of King Arthur for years. Like all Ritchie’s films, there are funky montages, cut to flighty music, and there are lots and lots of punches thrown. There’s even a chase scene involving some GoPro cameras.

This version of King Arthur is fine enough, but no one was really asking for it, and by the looks of it, no one is really going to see it. Hunnam was excellent in James Gray’s The Lost City of Z, and it might go somewhere toward proving that he’s much more suited to cerebral drama than frivolous action fair. As for Law, he seems to still be borrowing from his scenes on HBO’s The Young Pope, since in both he’s playing into some of his worst tendencies as an actor. I used to think Law was a talented enough performer that I’d enjoy this kind of grandstanding performance. It turns out I’m incorrect. There are moments when King Arthur is fun, even funny. It pulsates with that kind of enthusiastic energy that, when Ritchie gets it right, can really be intoxicating. But I’m not sure there’s enough here to really work as a whole, and if box office returns actually mean anything (and its totally possibly that they do not) Ritchie won’t get the opportunity to continue on with this story the way I’m sure he’d like to.

 

Directed by Guy Ritchie