I wanted to but couldn't!

Admirable film.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This film is an interesting take on the legend of King Arthur, but it just feels generic after a while. Also, I don't think this history is any more "authentic" than any other version of the story, contrary to what they claim.

Best paper is made out of trees. Once it's used and discarded, it gets recycled into a lower grade paper. Repeated recyclings result in a product just good enough to wipe your behind with.It's the same thing with the Hollywood screenplays. The best stories come directly from nature. Eventually they get recycled and regurgitated into a pulp that always tastes the same and has no quality other than being the toilet fodder. Once in a while somebody somewhere in Hollywood reads an article or two about something in newspapers and jumps to use it as a new flavor to spice the old swill up a little. That's how films seem to be made these days.That brings us to "King Arthur". One scientific novelty emerged in the 2000s concerning the legendary first king of England: that he may have been of Roman origin, as some new archaeological findings suggested. To some the news that sparks imagination and sheds light on that largely undocumented period of history, to others a valuable political link between the Roman Empire and the British Empire, it's something that definitely deserves to be put on screen. Unfortunately, there's that guy called Jerry Bruckheimer, that sells swill for a living, who woke up one morning and realized he needs a sword-and-sandal film in his portfolio. He hired the usual goons that approached the subject hastily and, instead of doing a proper research around the new take on Arthur, they just patched up all the gaps (and there were a lot) with the usual clichés, especially of sword-and-sandal genre, slapped on the label "historically accurate" and shipped it off to theaters hoping the label alone will sell it.The tagline lied - this is by no means a historically accurate representation, even if Arthur indeed happened to be a Roman named Lucius Artorius Castus. Coming from David Franzoni, who wrote "Gladiator", that's hardly a surprise, though. Again, huge liberties, if we can call them that, have been taken to serve a simplistic story, based on some strange conception that people the legends were made around were already acting and talking like legends during their actual lifetime.The battle scenes are the most obvious sign of that misguided approach. Artorius and his horsemen are too tiny a bunch to convince they'd have a meaningful impact on a battlefield other than in commanding roles. Their special skills and ability to single-handedly defeat multitudes of enemies is not what you'd see in a real battle, but rather something that would emerge in retellings afterwards, yet that's precisely what we see them do: fighting in a more "legendary" manner than their namesakes in "Excalibur". The dialog follows the same lines, but heart is confused with pathos. Artorius is stilted and artificial as if he came straight off the stage and every word he utters bears weight, meaning and poignancy, and is not necessarily in tune with what happens around him. His Sarmatian horsemen are one-note sketches, less a bonafide historical figures and more a bunch of a comic book super heroes. One has a trained hawk, one can shoot a nut off a mosquito with an arrow, one wields two swords at once, one cracks jokes... they're about as historical as Ninja Turtles. Geography grasp of the script is terrible and is a cause of crucial plot holes. The knights guard the Hadrian Wall, at the time the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire, yet they have to be informed by their superiors from the south that there is an invasion coming from the north. Wouldn't Artorius' men be the first to know? The nobleman they are ordered to collect lives with his entire entourage deep into the wrong side of the Wall, in an undefended territory, what no aristocrat, especially an important one, would ever do. On top of that it's him that shares the latest news from Rome with Artorius instead the other way round. How come the crucial communication is bypassing the keepers of the frontier all the time? Timeline is off, too, and concerns mostly queen Guinevere. The box-office nowadays calls for a strong female character, so it had to be a "warrior queen", not just an ordinary one. Ancient Britain does remember one queen Boudicca, a strong female military commander the new Guinevere was likely modeled after. It's just that she lived four hundred years too early for this and deserves a film of her own. No place for her here. They squeezed Merlin into the story somehow, too, but who cares. There is a dark tone to the film, which is fitting, and there is the anti-church sentiment that is about the only thing I genuinely liked.What the film is missing is a lot. There is no ambition other than the cash grab. There is no heart. There is no connection between the warriors and the commoners who would supposedly be so enamored with Artorius to pass the legend on. There is no Uther, no Morgana and no Mordred, which is a shame because the main villain could have at least come away with a better name than "Cerdic". There isn't a single rape scene, either, and that's both historically inaccurate and a bit ironic: as film that successfully rapes both the history and the legend could use a good rape scene or two.

to criticize this film seems be so easy than a good idea represents to looking for its virtues. and the first is the idea to present Arthur different by cartoons representations or literary portraits. the second, the good intentions to imagine the atmosphere. sure, only good intentions because the historical accuracy is lost from the start. not the last, a good point is the effort of actors to do a decent job. the effort only could be admired. because the feeling is clear - wrong cast for a film who desires be so credible than becomes amusing. the entire story becomes fake. the dialogues, the costumes, the porpoises of the characters. Clive Owens is out of his role and Keira Knightley tries to demonstrate her good intentions than her Guinevere seems be a shadow. the real virtue of film - the convincing pledge for return to the legends about Arthur and his followers.

Actually I just reviewed the Magnificent 7 (2016) and realised this was the same director and he's still making the same mistakes. (in my opinion). Cartoon characters, weak plot and farcical logic.King Arthur I really liked the look of but rapidly as I watched felt more and more irritated. Film makers often treat history as some sort of plaything to abuse and the audience as too stupid to realise. Yet all to often the real story is so much more thrilling than the Hollywood 'spin' (Watch the Revenant - then research the real story)Perhaps we are just too stupid. Whats worrying is so many people think Hollywood's farce is historical fact. This film looks good, but it's a veneer, underneath its just chipboard and papermache. Clive Owen is wooden and most of the characters are unbelievable and cardboard. What a shame, take a bit of trouble to get it 'right' and fact is often so much stranger (and better) than directors fantasy fiction history. 4/10 pants