‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ Review: This Superheroic Spin on a Classic Could Use More Personality
The last King Arthur movie from 2004, the one directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Clive Owen and Keira Knightley, made just $52 million domestically against a $120 million budget, numbers that don’t exactly suggest a hungry audience clamoring for more Arthurian content. But not even a marginally popular brand is immune to Hollywood’s current reboot fixation, and so here is Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Fuqua’s version, made in the wake of Gladiator, purported to be “the untold true story that inspired the legend.” Ritchie takes more liberties, unless I’m mistaken and the real Arthur’s dad fought elephants the size of mountains and wielded a sword that could stop time. His film draws inspiration from superhero stories and medieval fantasy shows. The target audience for his film appears to be people who wish Game of Thrones was less complicated and didn’t have any sex or nudity.
