As the warm weather starts to return, so does the slate of big-budget studio films. Playing preamble to the onslaught of summer blockbusters is a Guy Ritchie helmed reimagining of the classic King Arthur tale, in King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. This version features Charlie Hunnam (Pacific Rim, Sons of Anarchy, Children of Men) in the title role, with Jude Law (Sherlock Holmes, Enemy at the Gates, Cold Mountain) playing the evil Vortigern, as well as Djimon Hounsou as Bedivere and Eric Bana as Uther Pendragon. As we view this film as a stand-alone piece, there will also be an inquiry tugging at the back of our minds. And that is; why do we need another movie about King Arthur? Why does “Hollywood” keep rebooting the same things over and over? First we’ll look at the film itself and then address the case of retelling of tales.
Right from the initial Fade In: we realize that this vision makes no attempt to be “the untold true story”, such as the Antoine Fuqua 2004 version, King Arthur. This is pure fantasy. Ritchie goes all in on magic, monsters, and mysticism as he plays fast and easy with just about every rendition of the story, and invents a few of his own elements on the way. In this vein, any objectors to Ritchie not maintaining some semblance of historical accuracy or faithfulness to source material, really just has no relevance. This is his vision that is bolstered up in classic Guy Ritchie fashion… most of the time.
He makes some bold choices in departing from classic Arthurian tropes and gives the story, and especially the characters, that gritty London underworld feel, that he’s so famous for. The story opens past the age of Merlin and Uther Pendragon, with the origins of Excalibur being gradually revealed in flashbacks. In a Moses-like fashion Arthur escaped slaughter as a child and was raised with no knowledge of his royal heritage. Growing up in a brothel and on the rough Lundonium (London) streets, the Arthur of this story is cocky and street-savvy, with little ambition beyond the survival of himself and his close-knit group of downtrodden friends. Meanwhile, the evil Vortigern, brother to the slain Uther Pendragon, has taken over the kingdom and is increasing his power through the use of dark magic and evil vows with otherworldly creatures. Inevitably, the legendary sword is revealed again in this age, and Arthur is inexorably moved into contact with it and his fate is revealed.
Ritchie gives his Arthur definite flaws including a genuine unwillingness to want anything to do with taking on the reigning powers. Where the film really shines is in Ritchie’s rapid fire, witty dialogue between the several unorthodox characters. The way he plays with the timeline and toys with overlapping voice work is highly entertaining and helps to color this film in a new way we haven’t seen Arthur told before. His directing style has always been creative, frantic and fun, and he certainly continues in that fashion. However, the critical flaw of this movie is when the large, over the top battles begin, and the CGI takes over. In what can commonly be understood as the Frank Miller, “300-style”, we are treated to several scenes of swooping digital camera work, augmented with the speed up/slow motion, back and forth, as the hero slashes his way from bad guy to bad guy. In Ritchie’s scenes of dialogue and character building, there is a genuine reality that they are grounded in, despite the fanciful subject matter. When the magic and fantasy goes into overdrive, it loses that essence of watching a Guy Ritchie film. One only has to look to his brilliant film Snatch, that features one of the best hand-to-hand fighting scenes in modern cinema. While the camera work and editing is very stylized and overt, it never looses its genuineness and it’s connection to the rest of the film. In his King Arthur, it does.
The takeaway from this film is both sour and sweet. The great moments are really fun, especially if you are a Guy Ritchie fan, including him borrowing a few lines and phrases from his previous films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. However, the experience takes an unpleasant turn as it gets swallowed up in the fluff of CGI overload. Worth a watch to listen to Ritchie being Ritchie, but in the end it looses a bit of its soul.
With that being said, we switch gears to the larger question; with so many versions of the King Arthur story, why do we need this one? Why does “Hollywood” keep rebooting the same things over and over? The reality of the matter is that people have always retold the same stories over and over. Each new telling puts a different spin on the legend, specific to their own voice and the sentiments of their audience. One of the best-known sources of the Arthurian legends comes from Sir Thomas Mallory’s work, Le Mort d’Arthur. Originally published in 1485, this book was a compilation of several already existing versions of the Arthur legend. In essence, Mallory was rebooting a tale that was already in circulation. If not for Mallory, we would have very little of these early elements of the saga, around which all other Arthur stories have their roots in.
Even Shakespeare retells the legends of various Kings in his historical plays. His most famous work, Romeo & Juliet, is simply a reboot of the previous tragic tale of Tristan and Isolde. Earlier on this year, the film Kong: Skull Island offered another telling of the legend of the giant ape. While people can debate on the merits of the film by itself, most of us can certainly agree that there have been some amazing advances to both the visual portrayal as well as the story aspect of the Kong legend beyond it’s original inception, King Kong in 1933. Last year we saw a fun revisit of The Magnificent Seven (2016), which is a reboot of one of the greatest Westerns of all time, The Magnificent Seven (1970), which was a faithful retelling of one of the greatest samurai films of all time, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954). Even then, Kurosawa based his story off of another story he read about samurai protecting farmers.
Again, we as humans are constantly retelling the same stories over and over. This is not a modern fad, nor a construct of Hollywood. This is a deep seated cultural trait in which we relay morality tales individually constructed for each era and society. This does not mean that originality cannot be achieved, but it does embrace the reality that our stories will always be a construct of elements that preceded us, and the people we tell these stories too. Without an element of common ground or familiarity, there is nothing for people to relate to. So rather than balk at the idea of sequels or reboots being the bane of modern cinema, consider the notion that we are all engaged in the continual evolution of recording representations of the human experience. For when you get to the base of what makes us people, the core emotions of love, fear, anger, joy, anxiety, fulfillment, are universal to all people everywhere, since the beginning of recorded history.
Do we need another Arthur? Certainly! But bigger than that, we will always need storytellers. Join in.
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