King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (2017)

Yes, I forgot this existed. Yes, I am sure many of you also forgot about it. It certainly hasn’t endured in the way some other cinematic depictions of the King Arthur tale have endured. That’s probably down to it being quite a bad film.

Charlie Hunnam plays Arthur. He isn’t a king, unaware of his destiny, but he is the kind of determined rogue who can lead a group of men in a campaign against the tyranny of the current ruler of the land (played by Jude Law). Hunnam has the loyalty of a group that includes Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen, Neil Maskell, and a few others.

Written by Joby Harold, Lionel Wigram, and director Guy Ritchie, this is a film that could just as easily have been called Geezers Of The Round Table, and your enjoyment of it will depend completely on what you think of that phrase. I rolled my eyes as soon as I realised what I had let myself in for, and the film generally lived up to my painful expectations.

I wouldn’t say that this is a film everyone should avoid. The special effects are pretty good throughout, although there’s a tiresome overuse of CGI throughout, and Ritchie makes some stylistic choices during the action sequences that Zack Snyder would be envious of. He has a vision, whether you like it or not, and he sticks to that vision from start to finish. While that juxtaposition of style and content didn’t work for me at all, others may enjoy what is sold as a fresh take on a classic tale.

I cannot really complain about Hunnam in the lead role, he definitely has a certain charisma that helps to make up for weaknesses elsewhere, but the real fun comes from the supporting cast. Hounsou is great, Gillen and Maskell are fun, and Law makes for a hugely entertaining and irredeemable villain. There are also enjoyable turns from Eric Bana, Geoff Bell, Peter Ferdinando, and a few other familiar faces (including David Beckham in a cameo that he does okay with). The women don’t fare as well, sadly, but that at least allows them to forget this is even on those C.V.

Maybe I would enjoy this more if in a better mood, but I certainly went into it with my usual readiness to be entertained or impressed. This did neither, and I could feel Ritchie and the cast all working harder to ensure that this felt more like a romp than the retelling of Arthurian legend. Unfortunately, feeling that energy so misdirected just made me like it even less. Technically fine, and the cast could have done even better with a script that worked, but this turned out to be a knight I would rather forget.

4/10

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Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts (2023)

Although this is typical blockbuster fare, I realised that I might not have much to say about Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts when I prepared to start writing this review. The plot is what you might refer to as bunkum, there aren’t too many human characters, and certainly no complex journeys of development for them, and it jumps from one CGI-filled set-piece to the next throughout the 127-minute runtime (which actually feels much shorter, considering the bloated runtimes we’ve had from a number of big releases recently).

That’s not to say that this is bad though. It may not require any stamp of individuality from director Steven Calle Jr., and you would be right to be wary after looking at the collected filmographies of the six writers credited with the final screenplay, but this is a film that delivers exactly what people want from it, which is a number of scenes involving big robots fighting one another.

The plot involves some key that has been hidden away on Earth to protect both robots and humans from a massive terror named Unicron. Some bad robots want the key (including Scourge, voiced by Peter Dinklage), and good robots want to make it safe again. The good robots include Optimus Prime (of course, and once again voiced by Peter Cullen), Bumblebee, Mirage (voices by Pete Davidson), and some beast-bots aka maximals named Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), as well as a few others. Two humans who end up helping the robots are Noah Diaz (played by Anthony Ramos), caught up in the action after trying to steal a very nice car he doesn’t realise is Mirage, and Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), a history expert working in a museum that houses part of the special key. And it’s 1994, for reasons beyond me. Maybe to help keep any canon chronology in order, maybe just to have some decent tunes on the soundtrack.

There’s a decent amount of fun to be had here, with a good voice cast doing what they have to do in between each CGI-stuffed robot fight, and this should please both fans of the series and newcomers alike. Don’t worry if you get confused at the start of the film. I was confused and I have seen every other instalment in this franchise. It ultimately doesn’t matter. All that matters is remembering who is good and who is bad, and the film makes that pretty clear throughout. Talk about nominative determinism when you have the name Scourge.

Sitting snugly in between the main Transformers movies and Bumblebee, this delivers the spectacle without feeling excessive, over-indulgent, or horribly distracted by the kind of male gaze that Michael Bay had when positioning Megan Fox alongside shiny cars. And you get a decent amount of maximal action, which will come as a relief to those thinking this might be another trailer tease amounting to very little (as happened with the dinobots in a previous instalment). And if you don’t know how it will all end then I suspect you’re completely new to big, brash, mainstream, summer movies.

Ramos is decent enough in his role, the typical good guy who just cannot catch a break after having served his country some years previously, and Fishback works very well alongside him, the two feeling very much like equals up until Ramos has to do the standard heroic move to cap off the third act. Dean Scott Vasquez is sweet, playing the younger brother of the character played by Ramos, and his presence, and the way he looks up to his older sibling, remains a major motivating factor, despite him not being onscreen for very long. There are one or two others, but those three make up the most important humans in the film. As for the voice talent, you cannot really go wrong with Cullen, Dinklage, Perlman, and Yeoh, and Pete Davidson has a brash enthusiasm that matches his robot, so I must say that I enjoyed everyone picked to portray robots in disguise. And Michael Kelly pops up just before the end credits, in a scene that may frustrate and delight viewers in equal measure.

Enjoyable blockbuster fare, good enough to help this franchise stay alive (at the very least), this is also the kind of thing you already know if you want to see or not. If you do, have fun. If you don’t, have different fun with the many other movies out there. 

Look at that. It turns out that I did find plenty to say about it.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Army Of The Dead (2021)

I went in without any expectations, I assure you I did. Zack Snyder isn't someone I have a very strong opinion on, despite his ability to stir up lots of fans online and get away with much more than most directors would. I like his visual style, he's done a couple of great modern blockbusters, and I'll still try to view anything he directs with an open mind.

Unfortunately, it seems that Snyder, like one or two other big name directors I could mention, has started to believe his own hype. And may be surrounded by people who don't say no often enough. There's no other reason I can think of for the succession of bad decisions made here. And I will roll my eyes and wag my finger at anyone who forgives all other errors because "zombie tiger . . . coooool."

The plot is simple. A nasty accident means that there's a massive outbreak of zombieitis in Las Vegas. There's a lot of carnage, and then Las Vegas is basically quarantined, thanks to a handy complete ring of large containers placed around it. If you're already unable to handle this level of disbelief, it just gets worse from here. Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) is tasked by Mr. Tanaka (Hiroyuki Sanada) to put together a team and head into Las Vegas, with the aim of collecting a massive sum of money from a casino vault before the place is flattened by nuclear rockets that don't cause any other issues for the surrounding area. Yes, this is a film in which a plan to enter a zombie-infested area just to snatch millions of dollars becomes one of the least dumb things in it, certainly by the time you get to that nuclear rocket strike.

It's also a film that features a fleeting cameo by Sean Spicer. At that point I knew that it would have to work bloody hard to win me back around. It never did.

There's some good stuff here. The gore isn't tamed down, there's an interesting variety to the zombies, and Bautista is a good leading man. It also helps that they ended up with Tig Notaro in the role of Marianne Peters, the pilot for this exploit. Notaro, from her very first scene to her last, is gold. And I'm not completely oblivious to the coolness of a zombie bloody tiger, which is involved in what is the very best death sequence in the whole film.

That's all I can think of for the positives. The script, co-written by Snyder, Shay Hatten, and Joby Harold, is mostly awful. Everyone is given too much time, no matter how minor their characters should be, the motivations are unbelievable, and the attempt to establish an actual society within the zombie realm is a big mis-step, especially when you get to a reveal in the third act that is properly hilarious when I suspect it was meant to be a serious attempt to surprise people. Surprises are lacking throughout, from the characters who turn out to have other agendas to the inevitable resolution to different relationship issues.

The runtime, just under two and a half hours, is another issue. This is a film that should have been all about forward momentum, especially if that would help to distract from the poor script, but it meanders around instead, with Snyder needing to show off every idea that popped into his head while creating the film.

Although the cast aren't bad, some are better than others. Standouts are Bautista (not great, but feels just right in his role), Notaro, Nora Arnezeder (playing someone who can guide the team into Las Vegas), Matthias Schweighöfer (the safecracker), and Garret Dillahunt. But when is Dillahunt not a standout? Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera, Theo Rossi, and Raúl Castillo do what is necessary, but are either hampered by the script or just not as good as some of their co-stars.

It's not that I hated watching every minute of this. I just wished that I'd spent two and a half hours watching something much better. And there's a much better film to be made from this premise. Snyder, however, does what Snyder does. And that includes filling up the soundtrack with some horrendous cover songs, despite starting well with another bit of Richard Cheese (used so memorably in Snyder's Dawn Of The Dead remake).

I've already seen some high praise for this, and it's confounding. Everyone can like whatever they like, and it's always different strokes for different folks, but I can't help thinking that some of the people rating the film so highly are simply looking to continue keeping the pedestal upright that Snyder has managed to get himself placed on. 

4/10

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