Sessa17

It is a major summer movie, & the other thread at 5 pages long is nothing bunch of people whining over history semantics, so I figured this will be the actual movie discussion thread.

Anyway, saw this last night & the movie made me soo mad. It's the ultimate exampe of how an awful director, with no imagination whatsoever can ruin great material by a tremendous cast. Everything about King Arthur, the legend, the time perios, is just ripe for movie greatness. And this movie has a tremendous cast. The most beautiful woman on earth in Knightly. One of the most underrated actors alive in Clive Owen, a man who just oozes coolness in Croupier is given nothing to work with in this movie. Gruffod who is brilliant in the Horation Hornblower series, had a great chance at a breakthrough role in this movie but is given no kick-ass moments at all by the director. The amazing Stalan Skaasgard (sp?), the only bright spot of the movie, with the potential of being a truly great film bad guy, was even bogged down by the unbearable script.

And the battles & fights. Man oh man were they bad. Hollywood has to take a break from these epic battle movies after the LOTR franchise. This stuff looks so redundant now. There is nothing in this movie that you haven't seen countless times before & better elsewhere.

But this movie is NOT sweet Keira's fault. She was radiant & captivating. Yet wasted with terrible dialoque, & wasted screen time, what little there was.

mee2

You can only do so much with a terrible script....

lukewarmwater

thats what she said

PopcornTreeCt

The actual script isn't bad at all. Read the novel its based on the original script. They just chose not to film any of the details that the script had. I would not blame the script at all I would blame the director and the producer for not allowing a 3-hour R rated film.

gcribbs

Loved the movie. I will be seeing it again.

I actually liked it as much as Spiderman 2.

John Spartan

I believe they actually shot it. Fuqua complains at Chud.com that he was made to cut much of the story & violence after a late decision to attain a PG-13 rating. But the footage exists.

PopcornTreeCt

Well that's good to hear. Here's hoping for an extended version on DVD.

Vonner

I also really enjoyed this movie. After reading a couple reviews that said it sucked and was nothing but one action sequence after another I was skeptical going in. I was very pleased that the reviews didn't stop me from seeing it. The action was not non-stop and in fact it was the between action scenes that were some of my favorites. The acting was above average overall, the dialogue was good (barring a couple lines), and the pace kept me interested throughout.

Grade: B+

Rypro 525

bruckheimer said something to a like of that he didn't want questions from the press on "why was did you put too much blood and gore" ect, so he just cut it.

gcribbs

I actually do not think it needed it. The movie for me was the relationships between the knights. The battle scenes were fine. I actually liked the characters.

matome

I'll wait to see if an uncut DVD comes out. Not interested in seeing some watered down "family-fun" version.

Dr. DVD

Might check this out, but I hope it isn't as dull as The Alamo.

John Spartan

I agree that the scenes between the action are actually the best. The knights are pretty interesting characters visually and personality-wise. The plot has some unexpected twists and it surprisingly has the balls to take a somewhat anti-religious stance (in a Bruckheimer summer blockbuster!?). However, the action scenes are definitely cut severely to remove violence. The cutting really hurts those scenes.

sabre

Total disappointment. To me the fact that the storyu was about the true origins of the King Arthur legend was interesting not a detriment as some people have felt. The problem is that the movie goes about an hour after the initial action scene with absolutley nothing happening. the movie for a popcorn flick has no style. Arthur's fight at the end is a let down to short. Lancelot is terrible in this movie. all he does is whine, whine. He shows nothing of being a great warrior. Fuqua did a great job with training day but tears of the sun was okay at best while this movie stinks. By the way this film has the exact same story refugees being led to safety as tears of the sun. even the action set pieces are lame and disappointing. do not waste your money on this flick. go see spiderman 2 again that is what i should have done.

Dr. DVD

Dude, use some self punctuation, grammar, and spelling checks.

PopcornTreeCt

Agreed. You pretty much summed up my feelings about it too.

mike45

Another disappointment for Disney? How long will Eisner last, if KA doesn't perform?

SpaceBoy

This move was terrible. I had promise before seeing it, but I didn't enjoy any part of it.

I was bored to tears half the time, the rest I was shaking my head at how bad, and predictable the battles were. Guinevere is found on the brink of death, then in like a day, is the best fighter ever?!? ha

I think these types of moves need to cool it, I use to love them, but now it's all the same...

Put oil on the ground, light it up...

Have the main guy in a sworm of 100s of people, fight 1 at a time, and have them able to see their friends during it all... Somehow they can glance over, and see their alli, check to see how they doing, back to the fight. etc.

Nothing was interesting to me, and the jokes and stuff were just plain dumb to me.. The one about peeing sideways, the part about numbering the kids, not naming them...

This was just a bad movie, worst I've seen in sometime.

Geofferson

Ebert's 3-star review here.

Fanboy

IBTEHLHM.

In Before The Ebert Has Lost His Mind

I'll probably pick this up on PVD at some point, so hopefully some of the violence will be restored by then.

scrimshaw

I guess I'm in the minority, but I thought it was good. Much of the material is very relevant today - church and state, church hypocrisy, resistance to foreign occupation. I found the Arthur character to be fascinating as well. A man without a country fighting for an Empire he believes is righteous, only to have his ideals shattered. The comradery of the knights was also handled well. They all had unique personalities, fighting styles, and weaponry. There was even a musical number in the film which reminded me of the sword and sandal epics from the 60s. The dialogue/character development stuff was fine, but the action scenes were definitely a letdown. They were very claustrophobic, it was hard to tell what was going on much of the time. The editing of these action scenes makes me think there was a ton of gore that was later removed for the PG-13 rating. Not a classic, but it has some great stuff in it. And it is not typical Bruckheimer - name a movie he has done where a female character kicks ass (that doesn't feature Keira Knightley).

PopcornTreeCt

Wow, that Ebert review astonished me. I grow less and less amirable of him.

Amel

Well. It didn't suck. But I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone either. It kept my interest, but at no point did I get excited.

First & biggest complaint. Wasn't Keira Knightley supposed to be in this flick? I mean, she's the one I see in the commercials and promos for the film. And yet, she doesn't even show up until an hour into the movie. Thereafter, she still has very little screen time.

I don't think the movie did a good job of getting you to root for Arthur & the Knights against the Saxons. The Saxons are supposed to be the bad guys, but there's really no reason as to why. They're doing what Rome did, slaughtering & conquering.

Why was Arthur, a Britain, fighting for Rome against his native people? Same with the Knights from Sarmathia. Why the hell are they fighting for Rome after Rome slaughtered their people? Maybe history/legend buffs know this, but just watching the movie should answer these and it doesn't.

The plot was way too similar to Tears Of The Sun.

Reminded me too much of Braveheart, a much, much better film.

Action scenes were too choppy and too close up. Couldn't tell what the heck was happening and who it was happening to.

The acting from Arthur, the Knights, and Knightley was pretty damn good. The two Saxons were horrible. Horrible dialogue and terribly delivered. And Stellan Stasgard (sp?) is usually top notch but dissappoints here.

gcribbs

I guess you did not see the same movie. The beginning of the movie explains why the knights are fighting for Rome. It also explains why Arthur is during the movie.

matrixrok9

Pretty much agree with this post. I think the first battle scene was the best. The last battle dragged, even though it had some cool moments. It's way better than Troy which tried too hard to be an epic. I also liked Hans Zimmer score. Overall it's a one time watch, but I'd recommend it. One of the more entertaining summer movies this year.