Cheap King Arthur (Unrated Widescreen Director's Cut) (DVD) (Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Stephen Dillane) (Antoine Fuqua) Price

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Customer Reviews of King Arthur (Unrated Widescreen Director's Cut)

What I liked:
it was a grittier, more historically plausible interpretation of the King Arthur legend than anything filmed before. The chaos of the battle scenes was nicely done. There was nothing mystical or magical mixed up in there. The main characters were very flawed humans with their own stories: Merlin was a prominent leader, perhaps a Druid, but not a wizard; Arthur was a conflicted half-British, half-Roman noble who learned egalitarian values and cared deeply for his pagan comrades; and all the knights of the Round Table were foreign men eager to leave the service of the Roman Empire once their 15 year tour of duty was up. I was able to appreciate the care that went into researching the likely historical setup for the tale of these renowned "heroes".

What I disliked:
First, there were logistical flaws like wimpy people pulling bows that had 120 lb draw weights, weapons from inconsistent historical periods and countries, the overly done "tough Amazon warrior princess" typing done with Guinevere (it was laughably implausible). That's enough to bother some people, but I can get over that sort of thing if the rest of a movie is pulled off well.

Sadly, King Arthur wasn't pulled off that well overall, and I think it was a problem with the basic story being a bit underwhelming. The biggest (meaning, what took up most of the screenplay) task that these men faced involved not the fate of the nation nor the defeat of great evil, but protecting a small village from a band of marauding Saxons. I just had a hard time caring. You know a film is in trouble when the director has to rely so heavily on the music to convince the audience that there's deep emotion to a scene. Yes, that score was swelling heavily and often, but somehow, I just didn't connect on the visceral level with the dilemmas of Arthur and his knights, or the plight of the oppressed common folk that they were shepherding to Hadrian's Wall. The Arthur/Guinivere/Lancelot romance was halfhearted. Even the "sad" parts involving deaths of good guys didn't grab me, and I normally choke up. I kept wondering, what's missing -- why can't I lose myself in this story?

So this is a valuable lesson to all future filmmakers that may wish to tackle this subject. Perhaps the Arthurian legend does need magic and mystery to carry it successfully on the big screen - after all, if you're going to take on a larger-than-life tradition, your scope had better be larger than life. Otherwise, why bother? You could any number of other documented military campaigns instead. Too much petty realism combined with a too-small plot focus may have been the death of this King Arthur movie.

-Andrea, aka Merribelle

GREAT!! AWESOME!!
I found the movie very different from the "original" story-king arthur yet enjoyed this one even better. Keira Knightley was ravishing. If you like action and some suspense with some history then King Arthur will be a winner!!

Quite decent upon re-review
As I said I would do, due to negative feedback from a past review, I watched the film again, listened to the soundtrack, and am reading the novelization (I also happened to catch an MSN Video interview from Jerry Bruckheimer in regard to the film).

I have to say, now that I fully understand the context of the film and researching behind the actual Arthurian legend used (the 5th Century, first-account of the legend my a monk whose name I cannot think of now). This was the first account of King Arthur...a King Arthur who at that time had no (full) alliegence to Christianity, since 15th Century re-writing of the legend incorporated Christianity, despite Arthur's alliegence to Rome in the 5th Century

With that all said and done, I can see where the film is coming from. The film does not have anything to do with the very culturally familiar fiction of "Sword And The Stone" or "Merlin" feating Sam Niell, which would cause most of us to scold the film...when we were probably told in our childhood something fictitous and he hold that as the fact. King Arthur has no fiction, no magic, no nothing...it's all the raw legend of the 5th Century...the ORIGINAL story (stilghtly adapted to 21st Century in terms of dialogue et al), since each century had their own version of the story.

This film centers on a period of time when King Arthur, being born in Britian yet showing allegience to Rome, paves the path for his future, and what is now the legend; standing up for what he beleives despite ridicule. The events in the film just happen to be about this one point specifically, and not a whole epic life story as would be expected by the vague title King Arthur.

The music, performed by the brilliant Hans Zimmer, saves some points of the movie I still have issues with. The vivid use of color, lighting, and scene staging helps as well. I still enjoy Keira Kinghtley's acting, and am growing onto Clive Owen a little more, however he still seemed a bit stale for my liking, however it could be all in the part if one considers Arthur is somewhat in dismay and doesn't have true confidence throughout most of the film.

All in all, weighing everything again, I was able to get more out of the film and appreciate it much more and like it much better now that I know the context of the story. However, I suggest that all people in my situation at first watch the MSN Video interview with Jerry Bruckheimer since it helps sort things out and actually brings more to the film which ended up being quite good, however it has a bumpy path toward getting great reviews from people unless they do some research into the film's origins.