King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is an epic fail — though David Beckham cameo isn’t as bad as you’ve heard…
(...it's a trillion-million-gazillion times worse)
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
(12A) 126mins
BLIMEY, where to start. This film is one hell of a weird, hot mess.
It’s like Guy Ritchie was in two minds, with one side of him making a relatively straightforward origin story (despite no King Arthur film being any good since 1975).
The other insisted everyone act like they’re working in a used-car showroom, talking entirely in flashback and uttering mesmerisingly awful lines such as, “Put your ring back on, honey t*ts, you haven’t had enough porridge this morning to talk like that.”
But I digress. What’s the film about then?
Well, it’s an origin story starring Charlie Hunnam as Arthur, who was orphaned as a child and raised by prostitutes, facing his destiny as future king under the vengeful glare of Jude Law’s Vortigern, who is quite happy on the throne, thanks very much.
The film’s plot is largely as you would expect.
Arthur is a wild lad with a heart, hell-bent on looking after his family and all that jazz until, lo and behold, he finds himself standing in front of a sword stuck in a rock.
By this point you know the film is a bit rough around the edges, but nothing prepares you for an event that unfurls in such slow-motion horror you half wish Arthur would commit hari-kari the second the sword is in his hand.
Picture the scene just as Arthur is about to pull the sword from the stone.
After a steady, fun build-up, the music swelling, the anticipation at fever pitch, an ex-footballer with a Plasticine nose and all the acting prowess of a Key Stage 1 nativity play scythes his way through a scene with all the tact and delicacy of a car clamper in a tutu.
The David Beckham cameo isn’t as bad as you’ve heard.
It’s a trillion-million-gazillion times worse and makes a complete mockery of the entire film, treating the viewers with such contempt it made me angry.
It is SO badly executed you struggle to understand how it ever made it on screen, were it not such a glaring example (despite both their protestations) of matey banter.
From that moment on, it lost me.
The trademark flashback He Said/Then She Said/Love a Duck montages Ritchie is so well known for jars and detracts from some good action.
The whole film is murky, too quick, and stylistically all over the place.
Even Jude Law’s exemplary villainous slouch cannot save this turkey from the slaughterhouse.
What a waste of a decent cast.