King Arthur

Name: King Arthur
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, History, War
Released: July 7, 2004
Duration: 126 min
Rating: 46
Cast: Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Stephen Dillane

2004

METASCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 181 Ratings

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7.6

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7.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 181 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: July 7, 2004 | PG-13

Starring: Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Stephen Dillane

Summary: A spectacular, epic tale of one man's destiny to become a king. [Touchstone Pictures]

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Genre(s): Action, Adventure, Drama, History, War

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 126 min

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Critic Reviews

Kirk Honeycutt

An engrossing, highly intelligent reimagining of the legend of Arthur. Read full review

Ella Taylor

If King Arthur is as magnificently ridiculous as any Bruckheimer picture, its thuggish charms, which owe as much to Monty Python as to Sam Peckinpah, more than pick up the slack. Read full review

Ty Burr

King Arthur does to this legend what "Troy" did to Homer, with one important difference: It's a better movie. Read full review

Peter Travers

Strains credulity at every turn. Read full review

Premiere Peter Debruge

I'd gladly take the legend over this dreary pseudo-historical mumbo jumbo. Read full review

Clint Morris

Thankfully, the dependable Ray Winstone ("Sexy Beast") is in the film too and gives a droll, slightly-more realistic take of an uncultured abet to Arthur's side. Read full review

David Sterritt

The movie gives us a Round Table and a flashing Excalibur but no magic, no mystery, no mythic resonance. Mostly there's a lot of slashing swordplay that should appeal to the picture's target audience of young males. Read full review

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User Reviews

Blazzered

Oct 12, 2013

This movie is VERY underrated. I believe it should be as remembered as the much as the movies Troy, Gladiator, LOTR, etc. Great soundtrack, great battles, fantastic storyline, and timeline with the Roman Empire is epic. Loved the acting, lived the actors/actress's, and loved how realistic itThis movie is VERY underrated. I believe it should be as remembered as the much as the movies Troy, Gladiator, LOTR, etc. Great soundtrack, great battles, fantastic storyline, and timeline with the Roman Empire is epic. Loved the acting, lived the actors/actress's, and loved how realistic it goes. Instead of being all about wizards and medieval magic swords, it's more into a realistic perspective. I found myself obsessed with this movie, still love it today and it think EVERYONE should watch it. Very historical as well. I don't like how it's so underrated and has so much hate towards it. Guess people are more into medieval King Arthur than this. This is a must see movie in my opinion. I LOVE this movie. Will always be one of my favorite movies of all time. I could watch it over and over again all day and night.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

drakenseng

Apr 15, 2013

The movie is overall a great adventure centered around a group of warriors. The main character was not very interesting for me, kinda fell short and the supporting actors were much better. It has some nice battle scenes but it was a good guy always wins type movie. There are some casualtiesThe movie is overall a great adventure centered around a group of warriors. The main character was not very interesting for me, kinda fell short and the supporting actors were much better. It has some nice battle scenes but it was a good guy always wins type movie. There are some casualties on Arthur's side but i didn't feel that deep sense of loss or revenge. The protagonist was pretty good and you got a sense of his overwhelming power but then it got disappointing in the battle scenes. the sword pulling scene was also very simple and to the point and not very dramatic. In the movie, about Arthur i still felt like i didn't know him that much to feel attached.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MediaCritic

Oct 18, 2011

This movie is full of fast paced action. It's a good one and the movie is fast going. The storyline is quite good, and it displays the brutality of war well. There are some sort of fantasy elements included in the film, hardly any though. The film is done well, and features lot's of action,This movie is full of fast paced action. It's a good one and the movie is fast going. The storyline is quite good, and it displays the brutality of war well. There are some sort of fantasy elements included in the film, hardly any though. The film is done well, and features lot's of action, and tell's the tale of King Arthur well, along with his knights. It's a very serious film but a very enjoyable one that can be watched many times over and over.… Expand

2 of 2 users found this helpful20

Guy!

Apr 23, 2007

All in all, I liked this movie, although it got really dull and hard to understand at times. I know this movie puts down Roman Catholicism in a number of parts, but it's not offensive. I'm sorry you feel offended James, but face the truth: the Roman Catholic church did do a lot of All in all, I liked this movie, although it got really dull and hard to understand at times. I know this movie puts down Roman Catholicism in a number of parts, but it's not offensive. I'm sorry you feel offended James, but face the truth: the Roman Catholic church did do a lot of things like that at the time.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful

spadenx

Jan 2, 2012

It was ok but (and some huge buts) there is a lot of terrible acting through out the film. Clive Owen wasnt that good of a lead (which was rather suprising because I tend to like Clive Owen's films). The action sequences were too generic and slow placed. The script was terrible as well. AlsoIt was ok but (and some huge buts) there is a lot of terrible acting through out the film. Clive Owen wasnt that good of a lead (which was rather suprising because I tend to like Clive Owen's films). The action sequences were too generic and slow placed. The script was terrible as well. Also it pretty much butchered the entire story of King Arthur.

Suprisingly though it was still a somewhat likeable film for some unknown reason.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

MovieMasterEddy

Apr 7, 2016

"King Arthur" claims to be "the untold true story that inspired the legend." In the name of accuracy, apparently, some familiar legendary elements have been altered or dropped altogether. Merlin (Stephen Dillane), it turns out, was not a magician but the shadowy leader of the Woads, a"King Arthur" claims to be "the untold true story that inspired the legend." In the name of accuracy, apparently, some familiar legendary elements have been altered or dropped altogether. Merlin (Stephen Dillane), it turns out, was not a magician but the shadowy leader of the Woads, a guerrilla army of Pictish freedom fighters with stringy hair, blue faces and tattooed bodies. Since the knights of the Round Table are stubbornly pagan (and skeptical of their leader's Christianity, which is wobbly at best), they are not about to go off in search of the Holy Grail. And though Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd) at one point casts a smoldering glance in the direction of Guinevere (Keira Knightley), nothing more comes of the mythic triangle of king, queen and knight. Lancelot, in any case, is more of a fighter than a lover, and so, in spite of an obligatory cuddle with Arthur on the night before the big battle, is Guinevere.

Historians will debate the veracity of all this, assuming they have nothing better to do. But it will be clear to most moviegoers that this true story, far from being untold, was inspired by at least a half-dozen previous movies, from "The Seven Samurai" to "Braveheart."

David Franzoni, the screenwriter, also wrote "Gladiator," and Clive Owen's Arthur, like Russell Crowe's Maximus, both faithfully serves the Roman empire and turns against its authoritarian abuses. He and his knights are sent on a rescue mission that recalls the one undertaken by Bruce Willis in "Tears of the Sun," the previous movie directed by Antoine Fuqua, who directed "King Arthur."

Really, though, originality is not the point of this movie, any more than historical verisimilitude is. It is a blunt, glowering B picture, shot in murky fog and battlefield smoke, full of silly-sounding pomposity and swollen music (courtesy of the prolifically bombastic Hans Zimmer). The combat scenes, though boisterous and brutal, are no more coherent than the story, which requires almost as much exposition as the last "Star Wars" movie. Luckily there is an element of broad, brawny camp that prevents "King Arthur" from being a complete drag.

In this version Arthur's knights are a ragged band of foreign conscripts stationed in the shadow of Hadrian's Wall, where they fight an occasional skirmish with the pesky Woads, who gyre and gimble in the wabe. Arthur's mixed parentage — he is half Roman and half British — results in an identity crisis as he simultaneously grows disillusioned with the corruption and cruelty of Rome and succumbs to Guinevere's Woady charms.

Arthur's men, for reasons efficiently explained in the first 10 minutes of the movie, are required to serve the empire for 15 years. They complain about the English weather, which was even drearier back in the fifth century, but their devotion to Arthur is absolute. Although they have earned their freedom, the knights are sent off on one last mission, which acquaints them with both the evils committed in the name of Rome and its church, and with the threat of the Saxon invaders, who are waging a vicious war of conquest with armor-piercing arrows and the scariest blond hair extensions since "White Chicks."

Cerdic, the Saxon leader, is played by Stellan Skarsgard, whose halting, throaty delivery and gleefully hammy villainy confirm his stature as the Swedish Christopher Walken. Cerdic's lieutenant is his son Cynric (Til Schweiger), who sports a spiffy plaited soul patch and a slightly different accent, and who leads the Saxons into a battle on the ice that is the film's most original and satisfying set piece. The rest of it is mostly grunting, roaring and hacking, conducted by some fine, cheerfully slumming actors, notably Ray Winstone (as a lusty, cantankerous knight named Bors) and Mads Mikkelsen (as the enigmatic Tristan).

Arthur, who will somehow establish freedom for England by being declared its king, is a worrier as well as a warrior, and Mr. Owen brings a certain wariness to the role, as if he were, like his character, reluctant to commit the full force of his charisma to a cause he doesn't quite understand. Ms. Knightley, on the other hand, throws herself bodily into every scene, sighing her way through the gauzy love-making montage and appearing at the climactic battle the next morning in face paint and a smashing leather combat brassiere, hurling herself at the Saxon invaders with full-throated Woad rage.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

JamesT.

Aug 30, 2006

This Movie was a disaster.It was completely anti-catholic.The catholic characters had completely ridiculous accents. Whereas Clive Owen sounded like a computer programmer from London on a 5 day work do to Scotland.

0 of 1 users found this helpful

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67	#67 Most Discussed Movie of 2004
59	#59 Most Shared Movie of 2004