This movie did not get a lot of publication (at least in Indonesia). I only saw the trailer twice earlier and thought it seemed like a nice adventure movie based on the classic famous story. Anyway as our usual Wednesday movie premiere, my wife and I saw this film in the theater nearest to our home. Well let's get on with it now.
Brief Story Line
Alexander Elliot (Louis Ashborne Serkis) was a young elementary kid who was raised by his mother (Denise Gough) and best friends with Bedders (Dean Chaumoo). Both of them were kind of outcast in their school and always bullied by Lance (Tom Taylor - The Dark Tower) and Kaye (Rhiana Doris). One night, Alex stumbled upon a sword in a stone which he could pull out and seemed to be Excalibur, which was the famous King Arthur's sword hundreds of years ago.
Meanwhile, the enchantress Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson - Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Life etc) who had long been waiting for the re-appearance of Excalibur was starting to raise her own armies to gain control of the sword. As danger was lurking towards Alex, the wizard Merlin (Angus Imrie) came and gave support to help him. With the dangerous Morgana and her armies on his back, Alex had to enlist the help from unlikely allies to save the world.
So could Alex be the person he was supposed to be? Find them all in this fun adventure kid-friendly movie.
End of Brief Story Line
So this was a movie which was what I thought it would be. It was a film which re-told the very popular King Arthur and Excalibur legend and the knights of the round table. I knew a bit about that story since many years ago and there were many movies & TV series based on King Arthur's legends that I had seen before, such as the one directed by Guy Ritchie two years back (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) or the British TV series Merlin. Anyway this movie was a refreshing & creative way of the re-telling since it was told in the modern era with a totally different characters portrayed by teenagers rather than adult.
Because the movie cast were mostly kids/teenagers, it was very light and had a sense that it was aimed for the younger audience. The rating was for all ages in Indonesia, although to me personally there was a tinsy bit of rather violent/disturbing scene towards the ending which I thought was not that suitable for kids (few children also saw the movie last night in our theater). And due to its light nature, the movie did not have the intensity or really suspenseful feeling. There was adventure that the kids experienced but it was pure fun. And even the fight scenes plus the major finale were rather light. There was no bloody scenes at all.
This movie also had some funny moments for us audience, especially scenes that involved the young Merlin with his very comical actions (I thought Angus Irmie was wonderful playing this playful character). Oh and the performance of young Dean Chaumoo as Bedders was also very good. He brought the fun and made us had few good laughs as well with his really innocent looks. And there was also a nice performance from one my favorite actor Patrick Stewart (Logan, X-Men series and many more).
The story itself was something that did not require a lot of thinking. Logic surely did not play a part in the making of this movie (especially during the finale fight scene) which might not be attractive to those who put that as priority in watching movies. For me and my wife though, we just enjoyed the movie as a pure imaginative entertaining film for fun. It was not a serious movie that we have to overthink. There was a bit of drama and touching moments as well before the ending which kind of affected my wife. Oh one thing that I noticed was the visual effects which was surprisingly quite amazing for a movie that did not seem to be a big budgeted one. The sounds effects were put to good use, particularly during the fights and the voices of Rebecca's Ferguson character, Morgana (whom we did not recognized at first due to her make up effects).
For a film that had a duration of 2 hours, it did not feel tiring for us. Most likely because we were not feeling rushed or intense during the movie. It did not have any mid or post end credit scene at all. Overall I thought this was a fun and enjoyable movie. If you come and look for a kid-friendly movie to have some fun, with the legendary Excalibur story and cast mainly consist of very young people, then you should be able to enjoy it. But if you wanted to see an intense, serious, dark, full of action and lots of violence, this movie would not give you that kind of satisfaction. The choice is yours.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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