King Arthur (2004) – Extended Unrated Director’s Cut
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
Between the three Rings films and Ridley Scott’s Gladiator
(2000), Hollywood has not greenlighted so many epic fantasy and sword &
sandal films since the 1950s. This
year, three films have been issued that did not do well in The United States,
but did much better overseas. Wolfgang
Peterson’s Troy and Oliver Stone’s Alexander, both Warner Bros.
releases, had huger name casts and had bright cinematography and too many
digital visuals for its own good.
Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur is a much darker film visually and
takes a different approach that either in where it goes with digital.
Also planned as an R-rated release, Disney oddly decided
to cut the film down to get a PG-13 and may have sabotaged a film that would
have been a bigger U.S. hit, now that I have seen the full R cut. Unlike Peterson’s pretentious disaster or
Stone’s awkward production, Fuqua worked on the grittiest of the three and the results
are at the least, distinctive from the other two productions.
As for the story, Arthur (rising star Clive Owen) believes
his last battle has been thought when he discovers his men are not free to move
on and be happy as they expected. This
comes as some bitter news to them, including longtime confidant Lancelot (Ioan
Gruffold of The Fantastic Four) who sticks with him and gets the others
to follow suit. Guinevere (Kira
Knightly) literally becomes the wild card in all this, even in the face of the
evil Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgard), who poses the biggest threat to all.
This is all done without any of the mythological trappings
or any hint of magic as a serious force.
That disappointed many, but give Gladiator writer David Franzoni
credit here for trying a more basic approach.
The problems in the film include the characters not getting to really
develop as so much of the plotting and action sequences hold that back too
much. The choppiness often feels like a
James Bond film at times, though Fuqua already proved he can juggle a big
production with Tears Of The Sun, but these sticking points will not
throw off diehard fans of Arthur and history.
Skarsgard is the exception among the actors, nearly out-acting the rest
of the entire cast. The villain getting
the best screen time is usually the case in the Action genre, but since this is
also loosely history, that becomes a problem.
On the good side, it is an interesting deconstruction and
the uncut battle scenes make more sense with the dark visuals than the strange
PG-13 cut. Though effectively brutal,
the battles in Stone’s Alexander were more innovative with the literal
bird’s-eye view until the Platoon/Doors-unstable cameras and Matrix-like
slow motion moments ruined that. Even
when the handheld work gets annoying here, it never goes into the wacky
stratosphere that Stone’s film does, which is one of the primary reasons
critics were so hostile. Considering
Fuqua has not been directing as long as Stone or Peterson, he more than holds
in own in his bid for the genre. With
that said, King Arthur deserves a second chance, now that Fuqua finally
got his way after all of that hard work.
However, the conflict between history, the action genre and trying to
have a film whose big budget calls for it to be economically viable is hard for
any director to handle. Fuqua is just
building his clout in features, especially after making such a winner with Training
Day.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in
Super 35mm film by cinematographer Slawomir Idziak, but has a ton of digital
enhancements throughout. Of particular
note is unusual touches of red throughout that unfortunately still look painted
on as even the best 4,000 Ultra High Definition digital video cannot do red
naturally yet. It seemed less so on the
film prints (I have screened two of them so far) and how it will fare in HD
presentation is not known as of the time of this posting. Going back to Sony’s odd HD transfers of
Mike Nichols’ Wolf (1994), the “painted-on” effect surfaces often
still. This is as good as this is going
to look on DVD, a format that just cannot totally handle what was achieved on
the film. Idziak show Scott’s Black
Hawk Down (2001) and that aesthetic does not always gel here, but the
digital work is often too flattening and interferes with the realism Fuqua
intends. This is atypical of what Jerry
Bruckheimer productions usually offer visually and that has its advantages and
disadvantages. All this makes me
curious about the HD version.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is better than in theaters, as
this is the one originally intended, but because this is the debut of this
longer, more graphic cut, it is a huge disappointment Disney did not add a DTS
track. The film was issued Dolby, DTS
and SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound) theatrical with lesser soundtracks than
what is here due to editing. Hans
Zimmer’s score is more of the formula work he does too often and not enough of
his stronger work, like that of The Thin Red Line. The Titanic/Gladiator female
vocal additions are a bigger mistake.
The action sequences shine in spite of any problems with the music. The cut version used CGI to remove blood and
the sound was even cut down, making that version a true disaster.
The interesting extras include Blood On The Land:
Forging King Arthur (17:47), a cast/filmmaker “roundtable” (15:39), Badon
Hill alternate ending (4:11), an XBox videogame demo, producer’s photo
gallery that you can go through yourself with the arrow control or play as a
slideshow, and two very informative features that go with the film’s playback:
Knight Vision offers text facts as you watch and Fuqua does a full-length audio
commentary. That makes this a loaded
version of the film that will give the viewer the best chance to see if they
like this film or not. Even if you have
seen King Arthur and did not like it, you will find the improvements in
this version eye opening and some of these actors are already heading off to
greater stardom.
- Nicholas Sheffo
