The Pitch:
Maybe the "Outlaw" part was why no one cared about The Outlaw King
last year.
OK, it's officially time to give up on this brand of
historical epic as an Oscar play. It worked for Braveheart and Gladiator.
I don't consider Lord of the Rings the same thing, but the same year as The
Return of the King was also the last year (2003) this kind of movie had any
real success with both Master and Commander and The Last Samurai
landing significant Oscar nominations. But people keep making this kind of
movie, and we trick ourselves into believing they could be Oscar players. Last
year, Mary Queen of Scots barely made a dent. More importantly, just
last year, Netflix also released The Outlaw King with Chris Pine. Not to
be reductive, but The Outlaw King is the exact same movie as The King
only with less penis. That movie landed with a thud, despite even being a year
early on the Florence Pugh hype train. Still, people wondered if The King
would be a player this year. Timothee Chalamet has been christened as the next
big thing, after all.
The King will
not be an Oscar player. It won't show up on the National Board of Review list.
I doubt even Chalamet's name will show up on more than a handful of regional
critics award ballots. This movie will be forgotten quickly (if it hasn't
already been forgotten). I do hope someone continues to make this kind of movie
though. Just, please, let's start from a place of "this isn't an awards
player" and let them be genuinely surprised if they do manage any of that
kind of attention.
I liked The King well enough. Chalamet is a
weird choice as Henry V. He comes off as far too gentle for this role. Can he
even grow any facial hair? It makes him great for the parts of the movie where
he's supposed to look like a babe in the woods. It's much harder to see him as
the leader of a bunch of grizzled soldiers. I like how much fun Robert
Pattinson appears to be having as the French Dauphin.
I like the false climax of the movie. I assumed the
Battle of Agincourt was the climax, but then there's 20 more minutes in which
Henry V realizes he was duped into the whole war. Lily Depp-Rose is
surprisingly strong in her couple scenes. It makes me sad she couldn't've been
in more of it. On that note, having Thomasin McKenzie for only about 5 minutes
was a tease too. She needs to be in more things.
Oh, and two thumbs way down for the actual Battle of
Agincourt. That wasn't shot well. I know the battle pretty well, and I still
couldn't follow how the English forces won that. I missed where the longbow was
supposed to be decimating the French forces. It just looked like a 200 man
rugby match with swords, then it ended.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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