And there you have it, in a nutshell.
But since I like writing long-winded, nonsensical reviews about movies I dislike and would never, in all honesty, want to pay to see again, here’s the nutshell, the nut, and the whole friggin’ basket:
Antoine Fuqua, during the conceptualization stages of King Arthur may have posed the question: What makes a good medieval* war movie? Because it certainly is the case that the past decade has brought us a whole slew of really great medieval war movies, with the two most important ones being Gladiator and the breathtaking Braveheart (which in my mind is still the benchmark for any sword-and-shield-type movie).
So the question again was: What makes a good medieval* war movie?
Well, the grime, for one thing … the dirt and mud, the foggy battlefields, the blood and gore. The swordplay, of course. The valiant, inhumanly noble ideals. The intense acting. The bloodthirsty hordes.
Antoine Fuqua took note of all this, and brought his considerable directorial abilities to bear in an immense production that goes pffft with astonishing speed. Which is not to say that the ingredients weren’t there.
He had everything I mentioned. He even had that pre-battle warm-up speech that the hero shouts out to his men, where he talks about destiny and being remembered for all eternity. The only problem is, he only has five men in front of him when he does it. The speech is rousing enough, but why is he shouting? Can the enemy hear him in the valley below?
This problem recurs throughout the movie, with characters going through the motions and sequences that Fuqua remembers from other more successful movies, except he doesn’t understand the reasoning behind them.
Another example is the narrator, who we know is Lancelot, because he’s the first character introduced. I’m spoiling the movie here, but well, Lancelot dies at the end. Yet his voice inexplicably continues throughout the epilogue, as if he is narrating from the grave. (The movie’s fallback here is that Lancelot’s spirit, because he was such a great warrior, was reincarnated as a stallion, so instead of a talking dead guy, we’re actually listening to a talking horse, which doesn’t sound like any better an explanation to me, and only serves to make the ending all the more ludicrous.)
Certain illogical sequences also deserve to be mentioned. One huge, legionnaire-sized logical hole involved a magically opening-and-closing gate, in an encampment that has supposedly been deserted. It actually happens twice, so you can’t miss it.
All in all, it was a funny movie. I was reasonably entertained because I was chuckling throughout most of the last half. I suppose I could recommend that anyone reading this watch it once, but hopefully you won’t pay as much as I did.
*I use the term “medieval” loosely of course. I’m no anthropologist, but I’m sure you know what I mean anyway.