Posted on 01/30/2005 9:11:52 PM PST by Captain Peter Blood
Just got through watching what I feel was one of the most underrated movies of the Summer of 2004. It was the Jerry Bruckheimer version of KING ARTHUR.
This film had an entirely new take on the Arthurian Legend and it was probably the most interesting I have ever seen.
You can go to the link I left for Internet Movie Database and read up on it.
The acting was great and the storyline just as great. It dealt with the age old qualities most of us admire, Truth, Honor & Country.
I would urge you that if you were thinking this was just another version of the old King Arthur legend please take another look. The critics savaged this picture when it came out and I can tell you they were wrong to do so.
This picture is now out on DVD so check it out. It certainly has a number of gory battle scenes but other than that it is a wonderful film and it is somewhat reminiscent to "Braveheart". A great sweeping film with what I think is a more grounded and truer story of Arthur and his Knights.
Thanks for posting. Watched this a couple of weeks ago, and felt pleasantly surprised. This movie's approach to the possible origins of Arthur were refreshing.
Did it say Arthur was a fag?
What's the rating?
pg-13
maybe the critics didn't like it BECAUSE it was truth, justice and the Arthurian way
'we don't like no steenkin' good guy movies..."
I saw it and liked it for the most part. Lots of sword-play and that sort of thing.
But the anti-Christian theme that ran through it, though, left me cold and feeling that this was more of an un-making of the traditional Authurian tale than a reworking of it.
In a legend in which Christianity plays a defining element and provides the language and world view of its participants, the absence of Christianity instead of this movie, except as the trappings for evil, corrupt, and power-mongering men, is revolting and an inversion of everything that made the Authurian legends so appealing and captivating, especially for Anglo culture.
I wouldnt really consider it Authurian at all in retrospect, but merely another post-modern deconstructionist revision of a once familiar and comforting symbol of what is good about our Western ideals.
This moview is but another example of our entire Western Civilization being unmade before our eyes; its legends, myths and symbols being inverted, degraded, slandered and desecrated.
And we do it to ourselves.
Do we really know what it is that we are destroying?
And when we do realize and remember it, will we be able to restore it for our children after all this?
Knowing that Bruckheimer was involved in something remotely historical I was kind of surprised that King Arthur didn’t single handedly overthrow the Roman Empire, discover the Northwest Passage, while all the while slaying dinosaurs.
Ahhh, but it was OK though. It had some decent battle scenes but some of the lines made me groan from time to time.
No. Do you think he was one?
I agree with your take.
The ice river scene was a good one.
If it could go five minutes without knocking early Christianity, it would have been nice.
The Druids were really the heros.
Given the time period it was set it. Christianity was still coming along and there were a lot Pagans then. So in my opinion it was valid. But Arthur did have a strong faith and this came through in the picture but not nearly as strongly as it could have been.
Ask yourself, who were the villians? The Druids? Nope. The Saxons? Nope.
The only villians were the clergy.
The anti-Christian aspect was entirely gratuitious, adding nothing to the plot. Nor was it part of the advertising. It was snuck in.
Whats more, the calvary was depicted with stirrups, which were not yet intvented.
The photography was quite beautiful, and the staging of the final battle was well done, but I think I actually groaned "All RIGHT already!" as the battle went on, and on, and on. The chivalry and heroism of Arthur was not well illustrated. Bernard Cornwell's historically-accurate-as-can-be Arthurian novels are not black-and-white but they let you invest in the characters. Excalibur was a much different movie that skimmed the material, but it was beautiful and intriguing, with better music.
The direction is predestrian, with that Jerry Bruckheimer ten-thousand-cuts-so-it-feels-like-your-eyeballs-are-being-microwaved "sheen" on everything. They even took the potential of the ice sequence and trashed it with crappy CGI.
Awful. Wouldn't wish it on a DUmmie.
But other than that I have no strong feelings about it, and am glad you liked it! :D
If you aren't a movie critic, you missed your calling.
Thank you, what a nice thing to say. Coincidentally I may be getting a film reviewing position on a magazine...
Perhaps he was a metrosexual and Guinivere wanted a real man in Lancelot.
All I can say is it was a good film, I liked it and I was entertained and that is all I ask.
It wasn't that bad and I admit they took literary license with it but it was different and a fresher take on Arthur than anything before and yes I like Clive Owen, he was pretty good.
I was especially intrigued to discover, though over a thousand years too late, that the druids had half naked warrior babes who shaved their armpits and wore Goth armor.
Made me want to be there....
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