King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Go have fun, here's 175 million! And Guy Ritchie indeed had his fun. An audiovisual hedonist's paradise. Thirty-five years ago, Boorman was shitting out fabulous processed meals of Orff, double-bladed axes, and a mighty fistful of armor. Now it’s Ritchie shitting them out in his concept of post-modern fantasy (the costumes alone, or the way they talk), helped along by killer editing, unscrupulous and megalomaniacal CGI, complete resignation to the formal standards of the "great glorious epic", and presenting a coked-up ride where anything goes and, except for rare moments, there’s never any time to think about why what's happening is actually happening. It cleverly intersperses prologues to the individual scenes with scenes like ("Let’s take him to the Dark Land." "No way!" – "Welcome to the Dark Land."), for example, so we're not rocking the usual boat of relax-relax-relax-action, but constantly riding the Shikansen to the God of War finish. The soundtrack, the greatest ride since Mad Max, accompanies this perfectly, at times seizing the reins of the entire experience, and there won’t be a shortage of joggers breaking their necks when they pop it into their headphones. Add to that, here we have Arthur running around in sped-up shots from which the frames are cut, characters wearing an Aronofsky-esque first-person steadycam on their bodies, slowing down, stopping, the camera whirls around like its life depended on it, pans, macros, micros, Malá Fatra, Veľká Fatra, you name it. Too bad it doesn't earn its keep, because this is not a film you'll do much relaxing with. PS: Please nominate the protagonist's coming of age montage for the Nobel Prize for editing. (05/16/2017)

I have to give it to Guy Ritchie – his movies have style. Whatever he films ends up fantastic. But I can’t shake the feeling that some of the scenes tend to go over the top. The beginning was amazing. The very first scene was gripping, it tells Arthur’s story since early childhood until the age where the rest of the story begins. It’s original, quick, entertaining… for about an hour. Then the ideas thin out and the whole thing gets repetitive. That’s when it loses its magic and becomes a classic Guy Ritchie movie. I can’t say he’s not being inventive, but my initial excitement has quickly grown cold. And even though I admire the effort to shoot a King Arthur fantasy from a different angle, I still couldn’t piece the story together and all I could do was to watch some CGI hocus pocus. (08/02/2018)

Ritchie’s Arthur isn’t flawless, but it certainly doesn’t lack confidence. The genre mix of British gangster movie with fantasy adventure works, dripping with originality. The storytelling is like drunken bragging at the pub, about what if and isn’t always linear. Time slips by as required. Hunnam is good, plays his part, but Jude Law in true papal style rules with an iron fist in this movie. Not everybody will be keen on this modern approach, but this is the way ahead, and it must be trampled down a little more. Magic at work. Convincing effects. Pemberton’s music is just fantastic, a great soundtrack. (05/11/2017)

A great fantasy blast that honors the Arthurian legend, but at the same time does absolutely whatever it wants with it. It adds monsters, it shows Arthur as a gangster from London (Londinia, in fact), thanks to Ritchie's direction and Pemberton's great music, it's extremely polished and stylish, and thanks to the actors it's likeable as hell... And above all, it is also quite funny, which the trailers unfortunately concealed, God knows why. Don't say you expected an ordinary film from Guy Ritchie. (05/15/2017)

A properly physical experience with all of Guy Ritchie's trademarks. Wild conversations at an uncatchable cadence, London ever-present, even our buddy David Beckham doesn't go missing. However, until the very end, I couldn't decide whether such likable wildernesses are somewhat harmed by the fact that they are crammed into a classic story that occasionally meets traditional elements very carelessly, occasionally boldly and imaginatively, but sometimes just inevitably classically. This is most prominently evident in the direct comparison between Arthur, who runs his mouth in Charlie Hunnam's confident performance, never far from a wisecrack and grumbling about his fate rather frequently, and Vortigern, an archetypal fantasy villain with a desire for power. However, I am very happy with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, because it handles my favorite material in its own way and with knightly honor reaches an ending from which an excellent saga could continue in some alternative universe. We are left with at least an honest and courageous flash. (07/30/2017)