King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword

Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) is the King of England and has recently foiled the attempts of Mordred (an evil mage) to take over the kingdom. His brother Vortigern (Jude Law) sacrifices his wife in order to gain the power to overthrow his brother and become King of England. Pendragon's son Arthur (Charlie Hunman) is sent away by boat to Londinium, where he is raised in a brothel. In Vortigern's kingdom, a sword appears. Only one man can remove it. Guess who?

My only real engagement with Guy Richie's work thus far is through the two Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr and Law. They were silly but well crafted, entertaining fare. This film is just silly, with Law in "panto villain" form and Hunman's "cheeky chappie" shtick largely left me unmoved. There are a couple of scenes in which Shakespearean type plotting is discussed like an Oceans Eleven type heist movie that are quite fun but other than that there's little to recommend this.

Swords are slashed, arrows are fired, magic is deployed. The film gave me very little reason to care about any of it. I didn't care about any of the characters and I didn't care about the plot. Those are not necessarily terminal setbacks if the film can still entertain but it doesn't really. David Beckham shows up for a three line cameo and doesn't seem woefully out of his depth, but that says more about the calibre of the movie than it does about Goldenballs' acting.

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword isn't an awful movie but doesn't really do anything to justify its existance. Arthur returns to his rightful throne. Obviously. The End. It was a long two hours.

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