King Arthur: Legend of the Sword's reviews
Media reviews
Chicago Sun-Times
In its finest moments, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is swift and clever and exhilarating. At its low points, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword plays like a cheesy B-movie, with ridiculous monsters and unintentionally laugh-inducing moments.
The Playlist
Ritchie?s 'King Arthur' is a pleasing big budget spectacle, oddly aligned to the filmmaker?s thematic interests and startlingly compatible with his signature razzle-dazzle style. In fact, the soggiest moments in the movie are the ones that adhere the closest to that ambitious multi-film strategy, lessening the fun, and emptying its impact.
The Washington Post
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is a fun, if sacrilegious, first step in a franchise creation ? one that observes the first commandment of storytelling: Thou shalt not be boring.
The Guardian
Ritchie?s film is at all times over the top, crashing around its digital landscapes in all manner of beserkness, sometimes whooshing along, sometimes stuck in the odd narrative doldrum. But it is often surprisingly entertaining, and whatever clunkers he has delivered in the past, Ritchie again shows that a film-maker of his craft and energy commands attention.
The A.V. Club
The franchise-hungry tentpole-itis of the present studio model has produced oh-so-many dumb rehashes of classic myths and fairy tales, but this is the first that is always funny on purpose.
Entertainment Weekly
King Arthur could have been a rollicking blast. Instead it?s just another wannabe blockbuster with too much flash and not enough soul.
The Wrap
There are quick cuts and CG imagery and bro-ing out in nearly equal proportions; I found some of this excess to be heady and exciting, but by the end of the film?s running time, it all became a bit tiresome, to say nothing of tiring.
The New Yorker
Arthur and Vortigern mix it up amid a lot of shenanigans, detours and filler, some bad, some good and all of it disposable.
The Hollywood Reporter
From one moment to the next, it's possible to on some level enjoy the shaking up of tired conventions in a swordplay fantasy such as this and then to be dismayed by the lowbrow vulgarity of what's ended up onscreen. The film gives with one hand and takes away with the other, which can be frustrating in what's meant to be an entertainment.
Indiewire
Part 'Game of Thrones', part 'Snatch', and almost all bad, Guy Ritchie?s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is one of those generic blockbusters that has nothing to say and no idea how to say it.
Time
It's all more wearying than fun. Except for Law, whose courtly sangfroid can elevate even the dumbest roles.
Empire
Although it flickers to life at times, 'King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword' devolves into a jumbled affair, weighed down by confusing supernatural elements and a lazy reliance on visual effects.
Variety
Ultimately, 'King Arthur' is just a loud, obnoxious parade of flashy set pieces, as one visually busy, belligerent action scene after another marches by, each making less sense than the last, but all intended to overwhelm.
Roger Ebert
The result is an oxymoron: a frenetic slog. That?s unfortunately what happens to King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
Rolling Stone
An epic bore that believes if you make a movie long and loud and repetitive enough, audiences will conclude it's saying something profound. Wrong.
Festival Internacional de Cine de Lanzarote