The problem is not that there is no magic in King Arthur. It is that there is no King. By all means do your spurious archeology nonsense and to the wilds of the borders, though the Scottish scenes seem to be taking place in the Alps. No, King Arthur’s problem is there is no sense that he ever really becomes a King at the end of the whole deal. Getting married at Stonehenge-By-Sea is different to a coronation.
Nice to see the mass use of Night Arrows again, though if they were being historically accurate they would note that they were not invented until 2003 and the ropey film Timeline. And as for the Great Hadrian’s Wall Of China… Have Jerry Bruckheimer and Antoine Fuqua ever seen Hadrian’s Wall? Even in its hey day it wasn’t twenty foot high with a long walkway across it. The historical accuracy of this tale is as apparent as (insert Keira Knightly breast joke here).
The strange thing is that these recent trend in big epic battle movies seem in part to have been inspired by the success of the Lord Of The Rings films. And yet both Troy and King Arthur are at pains to remove any inch of the supernatural from their respective stories. Had they not noticed that the Lord Of The Rings was packed to the gills with magic? Movie making is no easy task, but sometimes you wonder what these producers have in their head. Which is why it is surprising Bruckheimer dropped the ball here. True we have not had a decent King Arthur movie in years. And unfortunately it seems as if that has been continued with this story: Clive Owen is NotKing Arturious. Not as snappy on the posters I guess.