7/9/04 "King Arthur"

Ok, so we were SUPPOSED to go see "Anchorman", except it was sold out. So we went to see this instead. BEWARE THE LEGENDARY SPOILERS.

7/9/04 "King Arthur"

Notes From the Red Book

trailers-"Alexander", "Without a Paddle" (Seth Green AND Matthew Lillard-let the chaos commence), "Ladder 49", "The Village" (I'm DYING to see this movie. No pun, no pun!)

ok, so far this is Braveheart wanna be...not too impressed

Who plays Lancelot..he's kinda hot

"I'm gonna drink til I can't piss straight."

Who is Galahad?

hmmmm...Arthur prays for his pagan knights....huh...even offers his life in exchange.

No human should fear to kneel before his faith.

interesting look at first century Christianity

sword in stone-father's burial mound

"Those Saxons are so close behind my arse is hurting."

Ugh...Keira too young for Arthur.

Lancelot/Saxon death by sword/arrow-funny

cool soundtrack

Stonehendge of course

Ok, this movie I had heard both good and bad things about, but it was one of those ones I had to see for myself to judge. It's a new take on the King Arthur legends. This version has Arthur being born in Britain, but raised as a Roman soldier. He is a good and fair man, believeing, as he was taught by his teacher, that all men are created equal. He is also a Christian, which puts him sometimes at odds with his pagan knights, who were conscripted into his service. These include Lancelot, Boors, Galahad, and Gawain. After being in Arthur's service for fifteen years, they are finally to be granted their freedom...but Rome has one last job for them to do. Arthur and his knights must trek across country to evacuate a Roman senator and his family from their home and keep them from harm at the hands of the vicious Saxons, headed be Stellan Skarsgard (whom I totally thought was Geoffrey Rush the whole movie, but I digress).

Guinevere pops up as a Celtic Xena-like battle queen and Merlin as a sort of Druid shaman of the Celts. Lots of blue facepaint abounds. Lots of battles. Arthur and Guinevere get married in the end at Stonehenge.

Ok, not a bad movie, but not a great one either. This film was basically a Braveheart wanna-be. But it never quite hit the emotional vein that Braveheart did. Oh, it came close a couple of times, but it just didn't stick by you in the same way. The battle scenes were mediocre, but then, after Return of the King, ALL battle scenes not hand crafted by Weta are mediocre.

Guinevere sort of irked. I kept going back and forth on whether I liked her or not. I just had a really hard time getting the virginal, lady-in-waiting version of Guinevere out of my head. But on the other hand, it was rather cool to see her stand as an equal with Arthur. And the traditional love triangle between her, Arthur, and Lancelot was almost non-existent. The most the movie made of this was a few looks between Lancelot and Guinevere as if to say, "Hey...you're pretty interesting. I'd like to know you better." But nothing ever comes of it. Oh, and the sex scene was just CREEPY. I really felt this Guinevere was too young for Arthur and that just made it uuuugggggllly.

Arthur's Christianity was interesting. He obviously relied a great deal on his faith in God, even when his closest friends were pagan worshippers. But, his faith did not keep him from sleeping with Guinevere before they were married...or marrying outside his Christianity. But, perhaps he was disillusioned due to the atrocities he witnessed others carrying out in Christ's name during the course of the movie. I found it very touching how he prayed for his men even though they held no belief in his God.

Ok, spoiler here-when Lancelot dies, I laughed right out loud...it was too funny, I couldn't help it. He gets an arrow in the chest from the Saxon guy, and then he turns around and hucks his sword in the guy's chest! It was like he was saying, "Oh yeah? Well, well, screw you! Take THAT!" It was funny, and I felt kinda bad, because I know it was supposed to be sad...oh well.

Personally,my favorite King Arthur movie is Excalibur. It just feels right, it feels like the legend we all know. But my favorite King Arthur is Sean Connery. Because if any man was born to play King Arthur, it's Sean Connery. But Nigel Terry is a REAL close second.

So see it if it sounds interesting, but it's different..just warning ya.

Until the next time, this is Sarah saying, "Excalibur's better."