Londinium Calling? Let It Go to Voicemail: a Legend of the Sword Review

From nothing comes a plot… j/k there’s still “nothing”. (via Art of VFX)

As soon as I read the title for Alyssa Rosenberg’s movie review in The Washington Post, I knew I had to watch King Arthur: Legend of the Sword as soon as I could. Rosenberg’s title is “It took awhile, but I found a movie worse than Batman v. Superman”: like, come on, how could I not be pulled in by that? Now, I may not have seen Batman v. Superman unlike some unfortunate souls on this blog, but I still know a bad movie when I see it, and hoo boy, is Legend of the Sword some shit. Unlike Rosenberg, I’m not willing to write the entire movie off as being not worth anyone’s time—though I do agree with her on many of her points. Parts of Legend of the Sword are exactly the schlocky “thinks of itself too highly” moments that make a lot of popular movies great and fun to watch. Still, the rest of it is a convoluted mess that “thinks of itself too highly” in the worst possible pompous British way imaginable; both sides are constantly duking it out in a street brawl that never quite gets a definitive victor.

Spoilers below.

Trailer Tuesdays: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

As far as fairy tales and legends go, the Arthurian legends aren’t what I’d call my favorite. Knights are great, sure, and the magic is really cool, but as a whole the legends never really grabbed me. (Maybe it’s because it felt like I couldn’t go a year in school without a unit on something medieval.) So then, what drew me to this trailer in particular? I don’t know: maybe I have a bit of Stockholm with these tales? …No, the reason is actually very simple. Despite all the distaste I’ve cultivated for Game of Thrones, I love Michael McElhatton (who plays Roose Bolton), so the moment he showed up in the trailer I knew that my chances of seeing this movie at some point had just risen by an almost unfathomable amount. In the end, though, this isn’t enough to keep King Arthur: Legend of the Sword from looking like if someone crossed A Knight’s Tale with a kegstand.