King Arthur opened on this day 20 years ago. The big marketing gimmick with this one was that it was “the true story” of King Arthur, which was a bit redundant, since Quest for Camelot already did that. But we’re not here to talk about that. Really. No, we’re here to talk all about 2004’s King Arthur, which is a very interesting subject, I promise.
King Arthur kicks into gear with Arthur’s magical sword getting stolen by a griffin. Oh, wait, no. That sounds wrong. Come to think of it, I don’t recall King Arthur having a griffin at all. Lame. I’m sure Andy Serkis would’ve been more than happy to do the motion capture for one. Anyway, I think Arthur is like a knight? Maybe? He was going to retire, right? Yeah, that’s it! “Damn it, I retire tomorrow, which is sweet” is something I think he said. “No more war and killing for me!” That’s ironic, because there’s a lot more war and killing in Arthur’s future. You see, Gary Oldman shows up and murders one of his favorite warriors because he needed more than everyone. Wait, no. That’s not it. Fuck. Let me look it up. Hold the fuck on, it was Stellan Skarsgård?!?! All this time I thought it was Ray Winstone! Huh.
Anyway, evil King Stellan Skarsgård wants to do a lot of rampaging and killing, and before you can say “Mamma Mia!”, he is doing a lot of rampaging and killing, but he doesn’t do so with a mechanical army (created with pride), so why would I even want to watch this? Arthur’s like “shit, there goes my retirement!” and saddles up. I think Lancelot was involved. Mr. Fantastic played him. And Keira Knightley was blue and had a lot of tattoos. I was 17 years old and had no complaints. Also, there’s–SPOILER ALERT–no love triangle between Arthur, Lance, and Guinevere, and no two-headed talking dragon either, but there is a sex scene that made some parents drag their kids out of the theater when I went. They didn’t mind all of the rampaging and killing, I guess. This was somehow rated PG-13.
Then I think evil King Stellan Skarsgård got trapped inside of a giant ogre’s butt, said the iconic line “the ogre’s butt,” and then got farted out. No wait. That’s wrong. Instead I think there was a whole lot of killing, and no farting ogres, which makes this an inferior film to both Quest for Camelot and Shrek. I’m sure there was a reason for all of this killing, but fuck me if I recall. Freedom or some shit? Yeah, probably that. WHERE’S RUBER WHEN I NEED HIM???
King Arthur was a Disney release under their now defunct Touchstone banner. Supposedly they made a lot of last minute cuts when they abruptly decided to release it as a PG-13 (which, again, I have no idea how it pulled off), since the R rating was viewed as having hurt the box office returns of Troy earlier that summer. Not that it did much to help things, since King Arthur flopped hard, with audiences knowing a Quest for Camelot rip-off when they saw one. Actually, when I think about it, it might have had something to do with opening just a week after Spider-Man 2.
Have a legendary night, y’all!