Special effects overload
Too much movie magic dulls edge of latest King Arthur.
Recently, vox.com film critic Alissa Wilkinson posted an interesting premise on Twitter: “Guys … I think Charlie Hunnam might be a movie star.” Watching the buff 37-year-old Brit in King Arthur:
Legend of the Sword, Guy Ritchie’s (wildly) loose interpretation of the enduring English legend, I think it’s a question worth asking, beginning with what it is, exactly, that makes one a movie star in the first place.
As has been well-documented, we happen to be living in an era of very few certifiable (and/or bankable) stars. At least in the old Hollywood sense — an actor we would follow religiously from film to film, aging as they did out of one kind of picture and into subsequent genres, a la Clint Eastwood. Humphrey Bogart began his feature debut in Up the River in 1930, and in the subsequent 26 years of his life, racked up a massive additional 84 film credits — moving from gangsters and outlaws to more likable, hard-bitten characters — before dying too young at 57. The old studio system built and cultivated its stable of stars, using them to draw in the crowds, like boxing promoters used the hype
of big-name fighters to gain the biggest purses.
In the internet era, with everything sped up and forgotten by the next morning, we have no shortage of fine, charismatic actors, but precious few who could be considered “stars” for more than a brief stretch of time. On our short list, among several others, we can definitely put Tom Cruise (whose maniacal grip on his star-power will likely keep him alive and making action movies long after we’ve all passed on), Brad Pitt (on the rare occasion he actually appears in a film), Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Robert Downey Jr., and a good handful of old-timers whose stars, even in twilight, still shine brightly for their past work (De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, Duvall, et al.)
As for younger actors, we all too briefly had Heath Ledger. We can include Jennifer Lawrence, maybe Dwayne Johnson, a handful of other folks, but the cupboard is pretty barren outside of a small, select group. It’s not enough to be a character actor with serious chops (Joaquin Phoenix), or a smooth, pretty face (Channing Tatum), or even in possession of a keen onscreen intellect and charisma (Ryan Gosling). The true star also transcends a single performance or two, like bands with a series of huge releases stacked on top of one another over time. Their careers have to show legs. They also have to possess a singular sort of quality, a connection to their audience via the two dimensions they appear in, a channel for the viewer to feel acutely the emotion of their character, and thereby, the production built around them.
With all that in mind, let’s revisit the Hunnam question. He certainly has the looks and charisma of a star, and in a showcase like King Arthur, where the camera zones in on him for practically every shot, he shows the rare kind of gravitational pull that keeps you watching raptly. He got his big break playing the beautiful young object of affection for a pair of loving men in the original, British version of Queer as Folk. From there, he has worked steadily up the ladder of higher-profile roles, achieving a thread of fame in the United States with his recurring character on AMC’s Sons of Anarchy, and then appearing as the lead in the Guillermo del Toro 2013 summer blockbuster Pacific Rim.
We shall see, then, what sort of heat the role of Arthur brings to his name. It certainly won’t be from lack of trying on the part of the venerable Ritchie, who stakes his film on Hunnam’s looks and charisma at almost every turn — and only partially to help make up for the lapses in the script. What we have here is yet another extrapolation on the myriad folktales and literary invention of the legend, a genre unto itself, whose canon is forever being embellished and added upon. The version we see here is a far cry from what John Boorman captured in the far more serious and moody Excalibur, but to be fair, that’s an entirely different sort of king.
As interpreted by Ritchie and the rest of his screenwriting team, the story of the born-king keeps his name and his sword and forgoes much of everything else beyond his rise to power. As for Excalibur, its powers seem, shall we say, greatly enhanced from previous versions; more a one-ringto-rule-them-all than simple magic blade. Indeed, much of this version of the story, which involves an evil usurping of the throne by Vortigern (Jude Law, deliciously evil), the treacherous brother of Arthur’s father, Uther (Eric Bana), plays like something out of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Ring series.
This Arthur barely escapes Vortigern’s bloody Camelot coup as a young boy, thrown on a skiff and sent floating down the Thames to “Londinium,” where he’s found by a group of kindly prostitutes, whose brothel is also somehow connected to a fighting pit, where men train endlessly to learn how best to kill one another (a steady Ritchie staple over his filmography). As the years pass, Vortigern becomes ever more paranoid that Uther’s one true heir will suddenly show up to pull the mighty Excalibur out of its
rock and use it to vanquish him. He orders every male in the kingdom of a certain age to line up and take their hand(s) at pulling the blade out, but it’s only when Arthur happens along and gives it a shot that the realm has suddenly acquired its oft-prophesied true-born king.
Naturally, Vortigern doesn’t take well to this bit of news and sets up an evil plan to execute Arthur in front of the vast crowds surrounding his castle, a scheme thwarted by the druid-like Mage (Astrid Berges-Frisbey), and several of Uther’s old guard, including Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou) and Bill (Aidan Gillen, Hunnam’s old Folk co-star). Arthur is whisked away to a hidden lair, where he eventually learns to control the power of his mystic blade, setting up a showdown with the evil uncle who killed his parents in front of him.
Along the way, we are treated to the usual assortment of Richie pyrotechnics, some of which have been so frequently co-opted, they play like commercial cliches: the canny back-and-forth-in-time sequences, using his brand of fast-clipped editing; the pace of the action speeding up and slowing down to emphasize the fierceness of the violence; the creative use of actor-mounted cameras; and extensive overhead shots, rendering the plight of men and kings, and the battles they wage, like so many abstract shapes, slamming against one another like a field of nucleons.
Whether these tricks are still as effective as when he first unleashed them nearly two decades ago in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a matter of taste, but despite the obvious parallels, the brainless, bombastic style of the summer blockbuster is actually not quite a perfect fit with his patented blend of stylized, witty violence (last year’s Man From U.N.C.L.E. was, perhaps, a better vehicle for him). This film is so choked with CGI battles, enormous mastodons, and flaming dark warriors, it gradually loses its grounding, making Arthur little more than yet another “chosen one” with mystical CGI-enhanced supremacy, all of which turns out to be something of a waste of Hunnam’s redoubtable talents.
For many formerly established stars — think Schwarzenegger or Clooney — it took more than a couple of high-profile films before the world caught on to their majesty. Given time, and the right sort of roles, film critic Wilkinson’s assertion may well prove on the mark. For now, we’ll say the jury’s still out, but it will definitely be keeping an eye on him.