King Arthur

Purporting to be 'the true story behind the legend', King Arthur is clearly full of shit from the outset. We start by meeting Lancelot, the most obviously fictitious of all these legendary heroes, and by being told that his company are Saurmatian knights relocated by the Roman army, yet we're supposed to believe they're surprised to meet female warriors. Most of what follows involves characters wandering round covered in shit and mud as in the histories of Monty Python; but there's accuracy there in mood if not in narrative. Those looking for a fairy story, a Victorian-style romantic myth, will be disappointed. This is neither a biography nor a fantasy; it is a passable war movie. In that regard, it delivers as well as Gladiator or The Thirteenth Warrior, managing to illustrate strategy without losing touch with the visceral aspects of battle.

King Arthur's real strength is in its casting. Every screen Arthur has been bland, and Clive Owen is nothing amazing, but he's believable as a tired soldier and disillusioned politician, more rounded as a character than most tales leave him, not pushed to the sidelines to showcase Lancelot. As the best friend and sometime rival, Ioan Gruffudd turns in a workmanlike performance, thankfully shorn of excessive nobility and all that foolish swooning over Guinevere, more believable as a human being. Ray Winstone is perfect as Bors, father of a dozen bastard children, more sincerely torn between national loyalties than any of the others. And, surprisingly, Keira Knightley manages a passable Guinevere, though one does wonder where she gets her fancy dresses from in the middle of snow-covered fields.

It's refreshing, here, to see Ancient Britons portrayed realistically in a military context. Woad is used primarily in camouflage, not in the flippant new romantic style of Braveheart. Breasts are bound down, not stuffed into ridiculous corsets. Axes are properly swung. Stephen Dillane's barely present Merlin is properly charismatic and believable as a military strategist accustomed to being the power behind the throne. Throughout the film, Arthur is gently manipulated both by Merlin and by Guinevere, yet the film never directly addresses this; one comes, therefore, to doubt his intellect even whilst admiring his abilities as a leader, and one is left feeling that there's a much more intriguing story waiting to be told.

With both Britons and Romans intelligently presented, it would have been nice to see a deeper investigation of the tactics preferred by the Saxons, who act as this story's bad guys. Stellan Skarsgard is superb as always, and makes a believable Danish leader, a man who commands more through psychology and an astute understanding of tactics than through his skill with the sword; yet the writers seem to have understood the Saxon rank and file rather less well, and have them behaving in ways which seem out of keeping with their particular military tradition. Continually outmanouvered, the Saxons risk becoming comedy villains, which in turn undermines the confidence one is able to place in a man who should be an inspiring hero.

King Arthur is, overall, not nearly as bad as the critical reaction might suggest; but it doesn't live up to its own boasts, and it could try harder.