King Arthur *** (2004, Clive Owen, Stephen Dillane, Keira Knightley, Mads Mikkelsen, Ioan Gruffudd, Joel Edgerton, Ray Winstone, Hugh Dancy) – Classic Movie Review 954

Director Antoine Fuqua’s 2004 movie stars Clive Owen, who looks glum as an Anglo-Roman Artorius (or King Arthur) in this entertainingly silly Hollywood attempt to prove that the legend actually happened – back in the Dark Ages of the 5th century AD.

Owen stomps around a grim and grungy England with his band of Eastern European Sarmatian knights, who join up with the nice Woads (ie the native Britons) to take on the evil invading Saxons.

Cue impressive battles and eye-catching visuals thanks to an enormous $120million budget organized by producer Jerry Bruckheimer and Slawomir Idziak’s impressive cinematography.

But cue also a lot of daft, clunky dialogue and dodgy history in David Franzoni wayward screenplay and iffy Sarf London accents from some oddly chosen actors. They’re all good actors but some of them just don’t fit the bill.

Stellan Skarsgard and Til Schweiger are excellent and credible as the villains Cerdic and Cynric, while the fight on the cracking ice and final conflict are both real nail-grippers. The young Keira Knightley looks sexy and shoots a mean arrow as cute, posh-speaking pagan warrior Guinevere but poor Ioan Gruffudd (Lancelot), Stephen Dillane (Merlin) and Ray Winstone (Bors) are up the creek without a paddle. But Mads Mikkelsen, (Tristan), Joel Edgerton (Gawain), Hugh Dancy (Galahad), Ken Stott (Marius Honorius) and Ray Stevenson (Dagonet) add lustre to the cast.

Dan Weil’s production designs are outstanding and Hans Zimmer’s score is a great asset, as usual. It’s a very well-produced movie.

But, with the attempt at realism, all the mystical Arthurian Camelot magic is missing in this often bloodless and wan epic that gets by enjoyably on its battles, visuals and one or two of the performances. The ending was reshot after disappointing previews, resulting in a travesty of a conclusion to the story. The real story? Ha!

The 12 certificate original runs 126 minutes but the longer, more violent, more raunchy and generally more satisfactory Director’s Cut is 15 certificate and runs 142 minutes.

Guinevere’s warrior persona is closer to the ancient Queen Medb.

The replica of Hadrian’s Wall built for the film is one kilometer long, nearly 400ft high, with a 10ft wide walkway on top and took 300 crew over four months to construct. Fuqua was determined not to use CGI to create the wall as he wanted the actors to be able to see it and stand on it.

This painstaking thing didn’t extend to the winter scenes, which are clearly filmed in summer as there are leaves on the trees, nobody has visible frosty breath and the snow is clearly fake. Talk about realism!

It wasn’t considered a hit. It took only $50million in the US and £6,804,952 in the UK. But on a budget of $120million, it eventually recouped $203million worldwide.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 954

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