Why do people hate this film?
The movie was such a clumsy terrible confusing attempt to re-skin Arthur into something cool. Guy Ritchie's music video montages used to be awesome, but holy hell this movie, just like the second Holmes movies was just one montage of poorly defined characters after another.
There is a cap on the number of montages a movie can have before the story has to slow down, explain the characters and give the audience a reason to care. This movie blasted past that cap in the first 30 minutes. And there were many more montages to come.
The film starts great with a montage of giant elephants with pyramids on their backs filled with soldiers attacking a castle, with blaring music of horns and thumping base. A super king/soldier guy, who I figured was Uther Pendragon, takes out the elephant army in grand video game hero fashion. That definitely gets your attention. Things slow down for about 15 seconds and then there’s more action, and people talking quickly about things the audience can barely grasp, and more outrageous things happening, and scenes quickly changing, and before you know it we are into yet another prolonged montage were Arthur is growing up in Londinium learning how to be a super street gangster while being taught by a guy named Kung Fu George. I shit you not, Kung Fu George.
Ritchie then employs the numerous techniques he used in his smart crime dramas: like guys telling a story and we see it in narrative flashback as they speak, then someone will ask a question and the story will change or something will happen that’s even more visually outrageous, like the flashback reversing when one of the listeners says, “Whoa, back up.” It’s clever and fun and all, but it just adds to the confusion rather than helping to resolve it.
Why do people hate this film? Because it is a dumpster fire.
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