By Travis Johnson
Well, we finally get a look at Guy Ritchie’s much-delayed take on the King Arthur legend and, frankly, it’s all a bit of a mess.
It could be that the trailer is terribly unrepresentative of the film proper, but Ritchie’s now-trademark Cockney gangster stylings are a poor fit for the material, even if the central notion – Arthur (Charlie Hunnam), prior to pulling the word out of the stone (Are they calling it Excalibur? Inquiring students of the classics want to know.), was a gutter rat in “Londinium” and must marry his street-born nous with his noble-born heritage to best the villainous Vortigern (Jude Law).
It’s all completely anachronistic but that’s okay – most of what we think if as core concepts in the Arthurian cycle are completely ludicrous and besides, sometimes that approach can work – A Knight’s Tale is still a charming couple of hours of historically risible fun. This however, looks like it’s both ridiculous and self-serious, which is a fatal combo.
Still, there’s a good cast in there – Eric Bana, Djimon Honsou, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Aidan Gillen, and being silly does not preclude the film from being fun. We’ll find out for sure when it hits on March 23, 2017.
