King Arthur tells of the allegedly “real” King and his Knights. In a down sizing Roman Empire, Arthur and his men are asked to undertake one last mission for Rome before their freedom is handed back to them and they can return to their Sarmation homeland from their posting in Briton. In a Saving Private Ryan style, they are to head north of Hadrian’s Wall, where the people they have been fighting for the past fifteen years are, to rescue a Roman and his family who are living there, as the Popes favourite pupil is the eldest son. This task is made even more dangerous by the fact that “savage” Saxons have invaded the north, and are blazing (quite literally) a trail down to confront the fleeing Romans.  On his journey, Arthur calls into question the cause for which he has spent his life fighting, finds love and accepts his fate as King. All in all a busy week for… 

King Ar’fur: The Cockney Rebel.

Evening all, I had read some pretty PP hype for this film on the intershnet, so going in I wasn’t expecting much, which might have had something to do with why I found this film thoroughly enjoyable. This is King Arthur Guy Ritchie style. The foolish sorcery,  and wizards, and dragons, and chivalry, and blah de blah from the fables has gone. What we have instead is a truthful and historically accurate (cough, cough, choke) vision of the great King Arthur. Brought to you by none other than that great historian and purveyor of truth, the one man in Hollywood who you can count on to hold true to the past and not inject his films with… Oh who am I kidding it is a Jerry Bloody Bruckheimer film for gods sake! When exactly did he ever give a rat’s ass about reality? It’s a smegging mystery where this came from. As expected it really isn’t the historical truth as advertised, this tag was just used to point out that there wouldn’t be people in purple robes with pointy hats, dragons and all the rest. Also as expected from Jerry it is a film riddled with silly errors, Bruckheimer does action, not documentay!! So my advice? Relax go in and see an ACTION version of King Arthur, it is Con Horses, it is Top Sword, it is Days of Romans. So don’t go in expecting something more. Now you have been warned about the story, on with the review.

I felt the film benefited from the removal of all the “magic”. I definitely prefer the “Gladiator” influence to a Dungeons & Dragons influence. Clive Owen does a reasonable job as Arthur, he is believable as the leader of the group of Sarmation(?) Knights, although he is weaker in the more emotional scenes. As hinted at by the poster Keira Knightly is a kick-ass Guinevere who the director obviously prefers (and who can blame him) to the titular character, not much to say about her though. She does well with what is asked of her, which is not a lot. Ioan Grifford (better known as Hornblower (snigger) to us Brits) is good as the roguish Lancelot, and this could open up some doors for the Taffy in Hollywood. The show, however, is stolen by the Portly Prince of Peckham (Hackney doesn’t fit) Ray Winstone! He is wonderful as the almost over the top Sir Bors. A loutish brute of a character with a gaggle of children and a huge lust for life, loving, drinking and fighting. Other characters of note are the Woads (presumably Picts) lead by Merlin who is a blue painted hairy arsed Scot instead of a wizard in this version, and is at war against the occupying Romans (namely Arthur and his Special Forces inspired Knights of the round table). Also we have the loathable Roman lord and his family who, inexplicably, live north of the wall amongst the troublesome Woads. And the invading Saxons whose leader is played wonderfully menacingly by Stellan Skarsgard, and his not so hot son portrayed by Til Shweiger, who hasn’t been in anything this good since Driven. HAHAHAHAHA, sorry just had to add that. Hooooo, funny shit.

All in all there are a lot of people in this film to get to grips with and this leaves a great many of them as two dimensional supports to a film that does, story wise, lack focus. You know what they say, too many cooks spoil the broth. The cinematography is good making Borders Scotland look like a beautiful but intimidating place, and the film is paced well, but once again at the cost of losing plot credibility etc.

Overall I would say this sits comfortably amongst other summer fair, you aren’t going to be remembering it in years to come but it will keep you entertained for it’s duration. It has good fighting, a bit of romance, very nearly some breasty dumplings but most of all at has Ray Ray, the wonderful Lord Winstone