King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Guy Ritchie)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1972591/) / Wiki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Arthur:_Legend_of_the_Swo rd)

http://www.empirecinemas.co.uk/_uploads/film_images/7547_5525.png
(The North American promo art is so dull..)

[Henry Gale]

It's everything the marketing made me hope it would be, and then also still significantly more wild than I would've ever reasonably thought it could be.

Between this and Skull Island, I really love the road that Fury Road has seemingly paved at WB to feel comfortable letting their tentpole directors go as insane as they want to, towing the line between boundless imagination and just plain lunacy. Ritchie isn't reinventing too much with his big action setpieces (and my biggest issue with the film is that some of the later fighting looks too video-game-y), but it's in the sequences in between (still often action-packed) that he does the most impressive and singular stuff, all very much an evolution not just of his own signature style, but maybe for anything I've ever seen the cinematic language of big movies like this ever attempt. He has sequences where you're sometimes simultaneously seeing the expository set-up of something, intercut with that very thing in propulsive action, and its aftermath, all at once, all done in such a lucid and stunningly kinetic way that, that it made me think this was the movie Ritchie always had it in his mind and heart to want to make, but that he's also gotten better over time to be able to actually do it this well.

It's just a crazy blast of a movie, one that I hope does very well but won't be especially surprised if it doesn't. It's a big, sweeping, disarming and viscerally enchanting piece of work, warts and all. I know I got to see this early and Guardians then comes out later this week in North America so things are a bit uniquely out of order for me, but this was just the perfect kick-off to summer movie season.

[Henry Gale]

I figured its critical reception wouldn't be super positive, but I still feel this one of the most exuberantly strange and stylistically unique big movies out of the studio system of the last bunch of years. The editing experiments alone are super ambitious and sometimes flooring, and its interaction with the score, when it does connect, can be awe-inspiring stuff.

Perfectly happy to be in the minority on this, but more people should definitely see it to hopefully join me. More Jupiter Ascending (or John Carter, Lone Ranger) than Speed Racer, but still, it might be my favourite film I've ever seen from Ritchie's aside from Lock, Stock (and even then, it's been a long time since I've seen that).

[Lazlo]

More Jupiter Ascending (or John Carter, Lone Ranger) than Speed Racer...

I'll see this now based on these comparisons. They're not completely successful movies (except Speed Racer which is damn near a masterpiece) but I'm always glad that I saw them in a theater. Strange and entertaining.

[Peng]

Of the four films in that comparison I liked Speed Racer best...

[TGM]

Well this wasn't nearly so bad. Certainly a hell of a lot better than its boring trailers would leave you to believe. A bit overly long, but it was fine. A Guy Ritchie King Arthur flick. It's what you'd expect from such a description, and it was fun.

Agreed that the editing was exceptionally noteworthy here. And also that the action was perhaps a bit too video-gamey at times.

And as to the movies being brought up to compare it to, I wasn't a fan of John Carter or Jupiter Ascending, but I liked The Lone Ranger. Haven't seen Speed Racer just yet. >_>

[Skitch]

Haven't seen Speed Racer just yet. >_>

WHAT?? GET HIM!!

[TGM]

Some mild spoilers? But I constantly keep finding myself just thinking about all of the weird things that happen in this movie, and I'm like, wait, did that really happen? Yeah, it did, didn't it? Like, one of my favorite scenes that I suddenly thought of last night was when he's running away and falls into mud, then gets pulled into the mud and into a damn ocean, where some woman hands him back the sword he had just thrown away. There's just so much amazingly bizarre and surreal imagery like that all throughout, to where this is definitely one of the most interesting movies to come out in some time.

Also, the more I think about it, I think my favorite scene in the whole movie is when he visits the "dark place", which is basically this isolated island filled with all sorts of creatures that are out to kill him. And as Henry had outlined, the editing in a number of scenes is intercut in just such a fascinating way, and I think this scene made the most effective use of it of the movie. Probably my favorite cut that sticks with me is when the one dude is like "we're not going there", then cut immediately to "so here we are". And it just keeps jumping back and forth like that, and then even further back and further ahead. Yet despite jumping all over the place as the scene plays out, it remains surprisingly coherent all the same. Like, I seriously love the way this movie was cut together.

[TGM]

Continuing the subject of Wachowski movies though (thanks Speed Racer), the editing in this thing actually inspired me to rewatch Cloud Atlas for the first time since seeing it in theaters, and holy shit, I just fell in love with that movie all over again. One of the most brilliantly pieced together films, and I still can't believe that movie somehow didn't even receive a nomination for best makeup.

[Henry Gale]

Of the four films in that comparison I liked Speed Racer best...

Oh definitely same. What I hoped I was coming across as saying:


[Of unusual big budget movies that have similarly seen tepid critical evaluations, it's more in the vein of the deeply imperfect but often bountifully imaginative] Jupiter Ascending / John Carter / Lone Ranger than [criminally undervalued work of singular cinematic euphoria] Speed Racer, but still...

[Wryan]

This was delightful. Has some real primal and wild shit on display. There were times when I felt that Boorman would have made something just like this if he had the tech at his disposal at the time, while other times it felt every bit the product of its era and director. It skirts around and with the spirit of the legend if not the letter. A fun time, with some incredible editing, as others have noted.

[Wryan]

Oh, this also felt, to its credit rather than detriment, a bit like an entire season of a good tv show smooshed into 2 hours. It bounces along from point to point, chapter to chapter, with a bit of string tying it up loosely along the way. I'd watch it if it were expanded into a series.

[Spinal]

I can't believe you guys are actually praising the editing in this awful film. There's a lot of it, to be sure. But it prevents the film from building any momentum or suspense. It prevents any of the film's images to land and resonate. This film is an obnoxious, flippant mess.

[Henry Gale]

I don't think all of its editing experiements work, but when they do, I think they're beautifully disorienting and gripping.

There's definitely a very straightforwardly-cut version of this movie that just wouldn't be nearly as interesting. And sure a lot of it might just be there to try to distract how blah the script it (and it is often quite weak), but I'm pretty sure Ritchie and everyone from his camera crew to his cast to his VFX people, and especially his composer and editors designed those sequences to have exactly that sort of fever dream syncopation. And the best results are the some of most impressive work he's done as a director for me.

I'm usually someone who hates fast cutting for exactly the sort of reason of lacking resonance and tension you mention, but the rhythmic spiral of what's done here engaged me more than I can explain.

I also feel like the giant snake attack is the moment you really realize you're with or against the kitchen sink wildness of how it employs it ideas. I was obviously quite for it.

[Dukefrukem]

This movie is great. Top 10 of 2017 for me.

[Rico]

There is a good movie somewhere in there. How you feel about this film is largely dependent on how you feel about Ritchie's chaotic editing style. It's like Godard on crack. I often found it distracting, but there are also moments where it really worked. Example, the failed assassination and escape sequences were well done. The quick cuts only added to the intensity of these scenes.