Friday, May 12, 2017

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword - An Entertaining Adaptation of King Arthur & Excalibur Sword

As mentioned in my previous post about Alien: Covenant, I planned to see this movie during the public holiday on Thursday. After our family lunch gathering and trying out new coffee shop that my wife was interested in, we went to one of my favorite cinemas that we had not gone for a while, i.e. at Epicentrum mall. It was only having 2 studios but both were very large ones having Dolby Atmos sound effect. We saw this one at the 4PM show. Ok, let's move along to the film now.

Brief Story Line

Arthur (Charlie Hunnam - Pacific Rim, Sons of Anarchy TV series etc) was a direct descendant of Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana - Black Hawk Down, Hulk, Troy etc) the king of England. However, he had to escape from the palace since his childhood days and lived in a brothel house till his adult years. During those years, he had built his own rapport as a "protector" of the female workers and he had always thought himself as a bastard son of one of them. He also befriended with Wetstick (Kingsley Ben-Adir) and Backlack (Neil Maskell) and kept close with the authority.

One day, an old rock with the Excalibur sword stuck in it resurfaced from the river. The king Vortigern (Jude Law - The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain and so on) was very anxious about this since it was told that whoever could pull out the sword would be the next king and end his rule. Vortigern who had been using dark magic as well, was told to ensure such person to be eliminated as he would be a real threat. So he instructed every man with the roughly the right age to try and pick up the sword. To his very much surprise, Arthur who had no choice but to try it out, was able to pull the sword out but was unable to hold it properly due to its legendary power. With this knowledge, King Vortigern wanted to punish Arthur in front of the crowd and get rid of his threat once and for all. 

Meanwhile, a very powerful mage, simply called The Mage (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey - Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, I Origins etc) enlisted the help from Sir Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou - Gladiator, The Legend of Tarzan etc), Percival (Craig McGinlay) and others to assist Arthur as she believed that he should be the true king. There were also other supporting roles such as the maid Maggie (Annabelle Wallis - Annabelle, Grimsby etc), George (Tom Wu - Shanghai Knights, Kick-Ass 2 etc) who also taught Arthur how to fight and Goosefat (Aidan Gillen - Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, Game of Thrones TV series etc).

So would The Mage and the rest able to assist Arthur to escape from Vortigern? Would Arthur be able to return to his rightful place? Could Arthur master the legendary powerful sword and use it to his advantage? Find them all in this exciting fun adventure movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Wow, this is one heck of a movie. I was overwhelmed with some of the scenes, especially the fighting scenes in the beginning, the middle and also in the end. There was a wonderful opening credit scene which I felt was very awesome. It lasted probably only 5 minutes but it really impressed me. And, the movie also had some brief parts which were fun to see, like the scene when Arthur was telling the story about the Vikings. Out of the whole fighting scenes, the one that I enjoyed most was in the middle which I felt was rather breathtaking and having an ultimate amazing ending.

Apart from the cool action sequences, the movie also had some dramatic moments and surprises. I really think that the way Guy Ritchie directed this movie made it very enjoyable. I did feel some similarities with other movies that he directed like the 2009 Sherlock Holmes movie and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows in 2011, especially in the part of using pieces of flash backs to explain something.

I think the special effects to the movie was very good, which should not be a surprise considering it has a USD 175 million budget. My only worry is with such hefty budget, it may not be having a large profit since the movie itself might not appeal to some hardline fans of the folklore of King Arthur, Excalibur, mages and so on, due to the rather unusual way of story telling. Some people might also feel that the movie lacks the cruelty & violence of a medieval era war kind of movie such as Kingdom of Heaven or Game of Thrones TV series. For my personal view though, this movie was just nice since its attraction is certainly on the way the story being told, and again, its fighting sequence. 

The sound effects of the movie were very good. Some background music truly gave extra sense of suspense or sadness and so on. The duration of 2 hours was just perfect to me, and I honestly felt there was no dull moment. There was no post-credit scene for you to wait, except if you enjoy listening to the soundtrack song & music. Oh ya, even though the violence scenes were not as brutal as movies like 300 or Gladiator, there were some strong language, so this one is definitely not suitable for children. Before I forgot, there was a cameo appearance of the popular soccer player David Beckham. Let's see if you noticed him.

One strange thing was this movie was released in Indonesia together with Alien: Covenant, which I think was not really beneficial as it had to compete at the same time, unlike in US when these 2 movies were released with 1 week apart. 

So for those who want to enjoy a nice action adventure film in the medieval period with some sword and sorcery plus the background of King Arthur with the knights of the round table, then you would definitely enjoy this one (especially if you are a fan of Guy Ritchie's works). Now if you are not a fan of this kind of movie or you prefer a more bloody/violent movie, then perhaps this one would be a bit soft. The choice is yours.

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

No comments:

Post a Comment