It is very hard to meet this movie at its level. I don’t mean lowering to its level. I mean seeing the film for what it is. It’s a crazy mix of topic and director that’s certain to yield something notable. Guy Ritchie is a distinctive director known for his frenzied pace and a grimy, street-level take on topics. King Arthur is a fantastical story and among the most austere premises. The round table and the knights exist in our imagination far more pristine than they would’ve actually been. In my mind, I’d expect Ritchie to bend to the King Arthur story. Instead, it’s the other way around. As a result, Legend of the Sword is a solid Guy Ritchie movie and a poor King Arthur story.
Everyone in this movie could been comfortably recast in The Gentlemen or Snatch. Charlie Hunnam isn’t King Arthur as much as he’s a local crime boss who breaks the rules for noble reasons. Merlin is functionally replaced by an attractive badass mage (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). The whole movie works better the movie you readjust to what it actually is.
That’s not to say I loved the movie. It was still too frenetic for me. Ritchie’s use of montage was unrelenting and helped him sneak in two films of plot into one. It was so much that the action turned into white noise at some point.
I’d love to have been in the room whenever the studio execs convinced themselves that this would work. Did they not realize that Sherlock Holmes’ London wasn’t the same as King Arthur’s London – I mean, Londonium? Has Charlie Hunnam ever proven himself as a bankable star? Was there a theory that this would translate better to international markets? Apparently, this was phase one of a plan for an extended King Arthur universe. How do studios keep messing this up? Iron Man worked as a universe starter because of how generic Jon Favreau’s direction was (which I mean in the best possible way). Why would Warner Brothers pick someone as distinctive as Guy Ritchie to start this franchise? Had it been well-received, what other directors can successfully ape what Ritchie does? It was doomed from the start.
Verdict: Weakly Don’t Recommend
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