As I sit here in the empty theater,the credits for Guy Ritchies latest epic scrolling down, I find myself at a loss to critically analyze this film. It’s also impossible to spoil since anyone who has scene a sword and sorcery epic since the nineteen eighties has seen the three or four stories that were frankenstiened together in this movie many times before.

Was the movie competently shot, edited, scored and acted? Sure. Was the attempt at making the Arthur legend racially diverse with important roles for women welcome? I should say so. Was the film entertaining throughout? Mostly.

My own entertainment aside, I can not help but feel the filmmakers have sold the audience a false bill of goods. Promised was a radical Guy Ritchie reinvention of a legend and what we get is a hodge podge where multiple legends are repurpoused to suit arthurian lore.

Imagine if Moses was born in Medevial England, sent down the river and after growing up he pulls excalibur from the stone, forms a band of merry men who hide in the woods, then runs through a dark forest fighting R.O.U.Ss(I don’t believe they exist)then after the power of true love awakens his ability to use the sword, he storms castle greyskull… I mean Camelot, and has a huge boss fight with Skeletor who is getting evil help from Ursila the sea witch. This is not even an exageration. It is an accurate beat for beat description of the proceedings. 

The entire movie plays like a live action meme meant to enrage nerds by invoking several wholy seperate mythologies… See example below. 

 I almost expected an after credits scene where God herself came down from the heavens with a vision of a cup for  Arthur to seek in a quest. Sadly no such scene occurred. I still hold out hope for a sequel where Arthur raids tombs while searching for mystic relics and fighting time displaced nazis in a reimagining of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.