Unfortunately, King Arthur cannot be everything that it wants to be as a movie. It has solid action and good themes, but it asks too many deep questions without really taking a stance on any of them. This leaves me with such an unexpected melancholy, no matter how often I watch it. However, it has good action and interesting characters--from the good guys to the bad guys, every player asserts a definitive characterization.
Arthur (Clive Owen) is an idealistic Roman who has been away from the city too long to know that its ideals are decaying. He has been away because he is commander of a band of knights who are sons of the conquered warriors of Sarmatia. There are only six of these left after their 15-year campaign of defense of Great Britain, which is under Roman rule and must be guarded against the native Britons. When the story begins, they have just completed their service and are ready to receive letters of safe conduct home. Instead they receive orders for one last mission--they are to go retrieve the Pope's nephew Alecto from the last outpost of the Empire; Rome is contracting its borders and leaving Great Britain to be overrun by the Saxons. By accepting this mission, Arthur and his knights will accept certain death, for they must pass the Britons and outrun the Saxons. Yet they go. And they return with the Saxons on their heels. So they join forces with the Britons in their last epic battle together.
These are not the classic knights of the Middle Ages, with their shining armor. Arthur is a tough-yet-just warrior who only seeks to do the right thing and who puts his faith in God. Lancelot (Ioan Gruffud) is his most loyal follower--he is a rogue with no no home and no ideals, but he puts all of his face and his loyalty in Arthur. Arthur's other most faithful servant is Dagonet (Ray Stevenson), who says little but lets it always suffice that Arthur is their leader, and it is their duty to follow him. Dag does not say much, but he is still the best friend of Bors (Ray Winstone), the good-natured fellow and community voice of the lot. All he wants is to go home to Sarmatia (and to take his dozen illegitimate children with him). Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen) finds all of the killing to his taste, while young-tempered Galahad (Hugh Dancy) is reminded of his duty by even-keel Gawain (Joel Edgerton). And let us not forget Guinevere (Keira Knightley), a pagan Briton locked up by Alecto's pious father. Merlin (Stephen Dillane) is a Briton sorcerer, but he and his natives are not the true enemies. Those truly to be feared are the ruthless Saxons, led by the cruel Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgârd) and his son Cynric (Til Schweiger).
The movie incorporates themes from the ideals that hold Arthur's world together: God, right, and freedom among them. Yet these ideals are undermined in Rome and in the movie alike. Lancelot is angry at Arthur for following a God in whose name the men are asked to sacrifice themselves for the protection of one boy. And it is in God's name that Alecto's father has enslaved the villagers of his outpost and forced them to starve while he has plenty. It is in God's name that he has locked up and tortured the Britons and non-believers. Lancelot chastises Arthur for confiding in God rather than his most loyal servant. The movie is also a movie about freedom: freedom for the Sarmatian knights, freedom for the Britons, freedom for each individual to claim his own land and to worship who he may.
But all of these are left open-ended while the knights spend their last half-hour in a great battle-to-the-death with the Saxons that we could actually have lived without. Even if it was necessary, it did not have to go on for quite so long. The grand action muddles the movie's point, and the movie's issues weigh down the action. In the end, it is an enjoyable movie to watch but not entirely satisfying. The battle scenes are spectacular, and the drama is well-played, but there is only time for a taste of each character and each performance and each theme.
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