Yesterday, Thursday the 27th I was lucky to be one of the 30,000 to attend AMC’s King for a Day event. Armed with a terrible memory and without any way to take notes, I’ll give you a SPOILER FREE look at King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
I stepped into the theater over half an hour early to find a good quarter of the seats full. Before the movie began, hopeful showgoers were being turned away repeatedly as literally, every seat was full. Comfort be damned, I was hyped for a King Arthur movie by Guy Ritchie with Charlie Hunnam in the titular starring role! The fact they gave out some pretty sweet swag didn’t hurt either.
Beyond the action and the great editing/humor, the characters were excellent as well. Arthur is a man who has made his own way – “from nothing comes a king” was a very accurate tagline for the film. I would’ve loved some more Goosefat Bill (Aiden Gillen, Littlefinger on Game of Thrones and Paul Serene in Quantum Break) but I’ll survive. Jude Law was an excellent Vortigern, although the movie could’ve snuck a bit more depth into his character pretty easily. The biggest surprise was Astrid Berges-Frisbey whose character – “The Mage” as she’s credited – was awesome! The rest of the cast was excellent as well, but nothing particularly sticks out in my memory a day later.
I typically don’t like reviewing a movie after only one watch, as hype and surprise can cover up a movie that really isn’t great a second time around. Heck, I typically don’t review movies anyway, but I couldn’t resist with such a surprise hit. Fans of fantasy shouldn’t pass this one up for anything, it was glorious. There were only a few scenes that really benefit from the big screen though, so you won’t really miss out waiting til it hits Redbox/Netflix/disc.
And if you haven’t seen it yet, check out a trailer for the movie below.