Guy Ritchie’s “King Arthur” is the story of a man’s struggle to accept his fate as Britain’s Born King. It also appears to be a man’s struggle against a studio: For every Ritchian moment of cockney camaraderie or narrative trickery, there’s a generic scene of mass sword-fighting in the muck, regrettably shot in that gray-brown palette mandated for all gritty fantasy reboots. (Have we reached Peak Grit yet? My kingdom for a splash of turquoise or saffron.)
Thank goodness, at least, for Charlie Hunnam (“The Lost City of Z”): There is no camera filter muddy enough to dim this guy’s charisma. His Arthur, orphaned and raised in a brothel, is less saintly storybook hero than amiable grifter.
We meet him after a rather interminable backstory: His father, the king, Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana), embattled by a villainous wizard, sends his son on a boat out of the kingdom, while Uther’s snakelike brother, Vortigern (Jude Law), gives a lot of side-eye from room corners. Eventually Vortigern becomes king, hosting a countrywide search for his prophesied challenger — aka, whoever can pull his late brother’s sword out of a stone.
“King Arthur,” following its reluctant hero’s path to greatness, is at its best when Ritchie does his quick-cut thing, jumping between storyteller and story in flashback or flash-forward, occasionally rewinding or restaging the action. Sure, it’s exactly what he did with his “Sherlock Holmes” movies (and everything else) but it works nicely in the telling of a basically humorless text.
Unfortunately, “Arthur” is rarely at its best, bogged down in countless CGI sequences of battlefields or monsters (I’m hoping Ritchie’s inclusion of rodents of unusual size was meant as a shout-out to “The Princess Bride,” but I have my doubts).
“Arthur” is also a total sausagefest. No Guinevere here: Every female character is either a witch, whore or murder victim, and none gets a name. I’m not saying “King Arthur” is homoerotic, but Ritchie’s camera sure does linger lovingly on the muscular back of its hero, slo-moing his fights, horseback rides and his manhandling of his, ahem, magic sword. (Hunnam is also reunited here with Aidan Gillen, who plays the sneaky archer Goosefat Bill; back in the ’90s, these two were quite the hot item in the UK show “Queer as Folk.”) Eagle-eyed viewers will also spot soccer legend David Beckham in a fairly unremarkable cameo as one of Vortigern’s soldiers.
So maybe this one is best taken with a Londinium-sized grain of salt. If you’re in the mood for a smattering of “Snatch”-reminiscent banter in a fantasy setting, great. If you want to gaze on the fair countenance of Hunnam as he sword-fights his way across the land, dive right in.
But if you’re craving a meaningful take on the Arthurian legend? “The Once and Future King” is a pretty great read — and, at two bucks on Kindle, a steal compared to a night at the movies.