Rating: 
Summary: An terrible movie falsely marketed as "history"
Review: There is so much wrong on so many levels with Franzoni's self-review, but I will just make some select observations due to the space limitations here.
1) Terrible movie - awful dialogue - bogus "history" - poor plotting - washed out, bland cinematography - painful acting.
2) Franzoni has proved to all of us that have spent years studying Arthurian literature and ancient/medieval history in general that he knows next to nothing about these subjects. Yes, he has glanced at Littleton and Malcor's highly conjectural (and not widely-accepted) book "From Scythia to Camelot", but does not apparently understand much of what he read there. He definitely cannot tell the difference between supposition and fact (From Scythia to Camelot is mostly made up of the former, not the latter, which is why few Arthurian scholars accept its hypotheses). The fact that he would even cite a hack like John Matthews as if he was some well-respected scholar is absolutely laughable! Franzoni should leave history to those that have actually put in the necessary time and effort studying it - his third-generation photocopied Cliff Notes version of it just doesn't fly.
3) There are no new archaeological discoveries supporting the hypothesis that the 2nd AD Roman soldier Lucius Artorius Castus was the "real" Arthur - that is a blatant lie.
4) It is ridiculous that Sarmatian knights were given names like Lancelot, Gawain and Dagonet. These names are no more Sarmatian than Joe, Pete or Mike.
5) Arthur is _not_ a title - it is a Welsh personal name - there is not even the tiniest shred of evidence that it was ever used as a title.
6) The early sources are pretty clear that Arthur was a Briton on _both_ sides of his family - while his immediate ancestors woudl have been Roman citizens (by nature of living in a territory conquered and governed by Romans), he was regarded to have been of foreign descent.
Rating: 
Summary: This legend just didn't live up to itself
Review: This movie was yet another retelling of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It had an unusual angle to the familiar story, and a lot of potential that I believe it just didn't live up to. But wait, isn't this a kind of foolproof, proven winner? Well...What I liked:
it was a grittier, more historically plausible interpretation of the King Arthur legend than anything filmed before. The chaos of the battle scenes was nicely done. There was nothing mystical or magical mixed up in there. The main characters were very flawed humans with their own stories: Merlin was a prominent leader, perhaps a Druid, but not a wizard; Arthur was a conflicted half-British, half-Roman noble who learned egalitarian values and cared deeply for his pagan comrades; and all the knights of the Round Table were foreign men eager to leave the service of the Roman Empire once their 15 year tour of duty was up. I was able to appreciate the care that went into researching the likely historical setup for the tale of these renowned "heroes". What I disliked:
First, there were logistical flaws like wimpy people pulling bows that had 120 lb draw weights, weapons from inconsistent historical periods and countries, the overly done "tough Amazon warrior princess" typing done with Guinevere (it was laughably implausible). That's enough to bother some people, but I can get over that sort of thing if the rest of a movie is pulled off well. Sadly, King Arthur wasn't pulled off that well overall, and I think it was a problem with the basic story being a bit underwhelming. The biggest (meaning, what took up most of the screenplay) task that these men faced involved not the fate of the nation nor the defeat of great evil, but protecting a small village from a band of marauding Saxons. I just had a hard time caring. You know a film is in trouble when the director has to rely so heavily on the music to convince the audience that there's deep emotion to a scene. Yes, that score was swelling heavily and often, but somehow, I just didn't connect on the visceral level with the dilemmas of Arthur and his knights, or the plight of the oppressed common folk that they were shepherding to Hadrian's Wall. The Arthur/Guinivere/Lancelot romance was halfhearted. Even the "sad" parts involving deaths of good guys didn't grab me, and I normally choke up. I kept wondering, what's missing -- why can't I lose myself in this story? So this is a valuable lesson to all future filmmakers that may wish to tackle this subject. Perhaps the Arthurian legend does need magic and mystery to carry it successfully on the big screen - after all, if you're going to take on a larger-than-life tradition, your scope had better be larger than life. Otherwise, why bother? You could any number of other documented military campaigns instead. Too much petty realism combined with a too-small plot focus may have been the death of this King Arthur movie. -Andrea, aka Merribelle
Rating:
Summary: Camelot! Camelot! It's Not
Review: When we did the obligatory Arthurian tour through southwestern England 20 years ago, we saw Tintagel. We saw Glastonbury (where some monks dubiously claimed to have found the bones of u-no-who). Amesbury, where Guinevere was exiled to a nunnery (no nunnery here, however, or other 6th c. ruins). We saw Camelot - a flat-topped hill that was the site of a long-gone stone age fort. It was a beautiful day, even sunny, a rarity for the area. No trace of a castle though. I had read Morris' "Age of Arthur" and understood fully that Arthur was a dimly-documented 6th century figure that may have checked the Anglo-Saxon advance on the Romano-Britons, but not the silver-armoured knight of 14th century hagiography. And what was I thinking sitting on the hill at Camelot? All that I could hear going through my head was Richard Harris singing from that ridiculous Broadway tune, "Camelot! Camelot! Where we write the legal laws!" My mind was filled with media gunk!
So I was ready for "King Arthur" which in ads promised to tell the real story of King Arthur as the savior of the Britons against the invading Saxons - getting the chronology rolled back to something close to the 6th c.(assuming the guy lived at all). What do we get? Some concession to history, but otherwise your typical bearskins and clubs Hollywood mush. I'd like to beleive, really. But:
1. Assuming spotty 8th century records are accurate (a leap of faith), Arthur would have been somewhere in the late 5th to 6th century AD. The movie has him as a Roman legionary or auxillary. Probably not. The Roman legions left the island for good around AD 410 to save what was left of the colapsing Empire and fight the incessant civil wars. Whoever was left would have been worrying about the Saxon Shore and interior settlements, not Hadrian's Wall which was long abandoned. This Arthur is depicted as a foreign auxilary from the Russian steppes, so, let's give a pass here.
2. The movie's reference to the Arian heresy is nice, but the victory of the Roman church did not result in an early Spanish inquisition agianst everyone else as indicated. There were too many other sects (e.g. Mithras) still around. I also don't think personal or nationalist freedom was a selling point for either Christian sect - this is about 14 centuries too soon. Which leads to...
3. The idiot Roman villa NORTH of Hadrian's wall?? In the 5th century? And the owner has an Italian accent?
4. Guenevere is certainly a dish in her peak-a-boo leather warrior outfit. I saw somthing like it in a shop in San Francisco on Duboce. Not exactly Sir Mallory here, that's for sure.
Unfortunately, too much of the movie consists of crowded battle scenes between the Mad-Max/Conan attired Saxons (grunt, kill), Arthur's soldiers, and the "Woads" whom I suspect are Picts. These battles are noisy and nothing special, but take up way too much of the movie, drowning out the few attempts to establish an alternative history.
This is realy quite harmless fun, as about as historically accurate as Monty Python's "Holy Grail", but it looks like Hollywood's brainwashing a la Mallory will remain. The most watchable Arthurian movie remains Boorman's "Excalibur", with a real Merlin instead of the nonentity in King Arthur. And Venessa Redgrave will always be Guinevere to me.
I do recommend Berkeley author Marion Zimmer Bradley's "Mists of Avalon" (not the silly made-for TV movie, but the book) for an alternative take on the Arthur legend.
Rating:
Summary: Execrable Slop
Review: While I am tempted to believe that the release of "King Arthur" is somehow related to a Freemason plot, I suppose I should follow Ockham's razor and choose the simpler explanation that it was written and produced by bigoted morons.
At no point in the movie was any sort of historical consistency built. Right from the beginning, anachronisms and neopagan fantasies pervade the film. The writers pick and choose which aspects of the Arthurian legends fit their particular bigoted view of history. This is all well and good for a fantasy, but the creators of "King Arthur" are clearly pushing the idea that their version is accurate.
The work is overtly derivative of Braveheart - Arthur & his Knights use the word "Freedom" like they were speechwriters for George Bush. But the movie lacks Braveheart's appeal of being an interesting story, well acted, and hyperbolic from a basis in reality.
It was fascinating to see the bigotry of the authors displayed through their absurd, hamhanded and unrelenting attacks on Christianity. They extrapolate an enlightenment-era secular sensibility back onto the Sarmatian barbarians, and then feel that it's necessary to paint post-Constantinian Christianity as equivilent to the Inquisition.
For all the writers' handwaving about correcting the Arthurian legend back from a Christianized medieval fiction, their "improvement" is an Arthur who would be much more plausible in 1990's San Francisco.
But the above statements are just minor observations. The real problem with the movie is that it is simply goofy. The little fight on the frozen river, the Roman settlement north of Hadrian's wall, the walled-up torture chamber, Guenivere getting a sponge bath in a see-through litter in the snow, the salute of flaming arrows, and the whole climactic battle-scene at Hadrian's wall... all were sophomoric and trite.
In summary, "King Arthur" is a poorly executed neopagan fantasy, with virtually nothing to commend it.
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