Today I felt like I needed a break.
And by needing a break I mean that my old break dancing injury was so debilitating that even after creams and painkillers, it still wasn’t letting up.
Was it a good idea for someone like me to ever even try break dancing?
No, but I was young and adventurous, wanted to learn new things and never ever thought I was going to be the next b-girl sensation.
And now I’m still paying for that one time I was trying a 2-point turtle freeze and crash landed straight on my clavicle. Classic me.
Anyway, back to the movie.
So, it’s all about the lads, innit?
This movie answers the question, What would it look like if to took an old legend and told it with a modern, lads-y twist a la Guy Ritchie, full of high-speed montages to gloss over all the deeper storytelling?
It’s not great, but it does have some stuff going for it.
Like Jude Law. Man, oh, man, what a beautiful performance from Jude Law as the dark, twisted villain. I love it!
In fact, I think it echoes Paul Bettany in The DaVinci Code. Sometimes a mediocre, trope-heavy movie simply exists to allow one single start to really shine.
It’s also visually very pleasing, the landscapes, the set design, the costumes. My favourites were the black outfits/armours of Vortigern’s soldiers, though it did have me thinking boy they must raise a lot of black cattle to supply that many people with matching outfits. Or just use tons and tons of dye.
But since it’s all about the lads, the lasses always get the short end of the stick in Guy Ritchie movies, if they, in fact, show up at all.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I like Guy Ritchie’s storytelling style.
Before the world (read: America) was hailing Snatch as a breath of fresh air, my copy of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels was already well-worn, making Snatch feel a lacklustre clone for the American market by comparison.
Before I proceed, let’s look at the cinematic universe that never was.
Legend of the Sword was supposed to be the first of a six-film cycle setting up the King Arthur universe.
But when Legend of the Sword, which reportedly cost Warner Bros. $150-million, bombed at the box office, those plans were scrapped.
Every studio in the mid-to-late 2010s was rushing to copy Marvel Studios’ success in creating a cinematic universe, the plan was for King Arthur to establish Charlie Hunnam’s “Born King” as the saga’s centrepiece hero before introducing other characters like Merlin and Lancelot in their own spin-offs.
All of the Arthurian legends would have finally united in an Avengers-style team-up movie, rebooting King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
Yeah, neeeever gonna happen.
This was supposed to be the origin story for King Arthur, focused on his journey to embrace his destiny as king.
And what’s a king without a woman to prop him up? A box office failure, apparently.
Had they introduced Guinevere in this move, it would have allowed her romance with Arthur (and later Lancelot) to be the basis of a future film in the grand King Arthur master plan.
Who is The Mage and why is The Mage?
The Mage isn’t of Arthurian legend, but then again neither are most of these characters.
The Mage was originally going to be Guinevere as Astrid Bergès-Frisbey had been cast for the role of Guinevere as Arthur’s wife.
Instead, Bergès-Frisbey was reportedly instrumental in creating the Mage. As per Hunnam, the reasons for the changes made to Guinevere’s character were due to “partly the film, and partly the actor dictating that is was going to be something different, and Guy having the confidence and versatility to just roll with it.”
Guinevere reimagined as the Mage is reminiscent of Keira Knightley’s Guinevere from 2004’s King Arthur, where Guinevere is a Pict warrior in league with Merlin.
Besides Jude Law, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey’s portrayal of the Mage is my favourite in the movie.
The only female character still only exists to prop up the male lead, but she has more agency and is pivotal to the plot moving forward.
And the way Astrid Bergès-Frisbey portrayed the character and how she uses her magic, gives me strong autism vibes and love it.
Just like with Jude Law playing Vortigern, it’s the subtle things that really make the Mage stand out from a cast of otherwise bland characters that have nothing going for them except trying to look like a historical Snatch.
The pacing moves quickly.
There are lots of montages to skip over the bits that would usually set up the emotional moments in the story to have any emotional punch, and the dialogue is quippy, full of that “I’ve got to get home to my wife, see, it’s my turn to cook dinner, y’know” rambling storytelling that is a Guy Ritchie staple.
I think this is case of trying to be cute, but it backfiring.
I always say, don’t try to be cute in your writing. It always backfires. Always.
The attempt at, not breaking the Fourth Wall per se, but using external logic by introducing modern concepts into the dialogue and world-building doesn’t work for me.
Once Arthur figures out how to harness and use his power, it also costs him nothing to use it (apparently), which just adds to him being so boring. On the contrary, Vortigern gained his power at great personal cost, which made him instantly interesting with his internal conflict.
No fantasy classic this one, but it did entertain me for long enough for the painkillers to kick in on my shoulder.
And, well, wouldn’t you know it, the trailer’s worse than the movie, innit? But there you have it.
