Arthur the King (1985)

The greatest movie ever made..!

recommended

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is on as I type. I have just happened upon it while channel surfing. My God it is worse than appalling. How actors like Edward Woodward, Malcolm McDowell, and Candice Bergen got suckered into this is beyond me. Rupert Everett is an awful actor and deserves nothing better, but the others!! It really is beyond awful and nothing about it has the ring of authenticity. The script must have been written by that limitless number of monkeys that everyone talks about. It does actually go to show that good actors are only really as good as the material they have to work with and no- one comes out of this smelling of roses. A friend of mine taught Everett as a teenager and liked him but I think he is a minor talent who looked good as a youth but has nothing to offer as a mature actor. There is absolutely nothing to recommend this as a film not even a " so bad it is good" kind of recommendation-it is merely an embarrassment.

i personally loved this movie, i especially loved Edward Woodward aka The Equalizer, as Merlin and i thought Candice did an interesting job as Morgan, she portrayed Morgan as having a really bad day with a hell of a chip on her shoulder but decent none the less. even though i don't typically like ones that put her in a bad light. i liked this since i was a child and i still think it is a charming movie, true it was done low budget and is nowhere near the blockbuster Excalibur was but still worth seeing. is is great if your interested in the story of Gawain and Lady Ragnell's relationship sice most films don't even mention the two of them. and it of course includes the romance between lance and gwen. i liked the spunk they gave to gwen in this, a girl that has some fight in her who yells no when her captors wanted to have their way with her and they back off. so all in all i would definitely recommend this film, especially if you are like me and like edward woodward. great brit actor.

Merlin and the Sword (a.k.a Arthur The King) is a genuinely terrible sword and sorcery opus which features a cast full of seasoned old pros and young stars of the future. Quite how these talented actors and actresses were persuaded to lend their faces to this ridiculous production is anybody's guess, but after a while it becomes embarrassing to watch so many gifted thespians sinking in the quicksand of such a foolish script. Director Clive Donner has made some good films too, so one has to wonder what was going through his mind when he agreed to direct this turkey. Perhaps everyone involved had some overdue bills to pay! An American tourist, Katharine (Dyan Cannon), is on a day-trip at the ancient monument of Stonehenge when she inadvertently falls down a hole. When she lands at the bottom, she finds herself in a cave - no normal cave, mind you, but a cave which which houses the famous wizard Merlin (Edward Woodward) and his lover Niniane (Lucy Gutteridge). Merlin has apparently been imprisoned with his lover in this cave for a thousand years. The arrival of Katharine gives him an excuse to tell a story, and pretty soon he is narrating a tale about his old companion King Arthur (Malcolm McDowell). Merlin tells of Arthur's marriage to the lovely Queen Guinevere (Rosalyn Landor); the poisonous plotting of Arthur's treacherous half-sister Morgan Le Fay (Candice Bergen); and the forbidden love affair between Guinevere and the trusted knight Sir Lancelot (Rupert Everett). This cheapjack fantasy never really works in spite of the strong cast. There's something fundamentally stupid about the plot, which could have been serviceable if dealt with in a more tongue-in-cheek manner, but here comes across as merely risible. There's also something terribly wrong with the general atmosphere of the film.... maybe it's the hopelessly '80s music score which is as cheesy as a lump of mature cheddar; maybe it's the over-modernised dialogue which doesn't ring true amid the Middle Ages period trappings; maybe it's the atrocious special effects; or maybe it's just the all-round air of indifference which affects the film both infront of and behind the cameras. It's hard to believe that Rupert Everett and Liam Neeson (here guilty of lacklustre performances) ever went on to become big stars. It's equaly hard to believe that the likes of Woodward, McDowell, Bergen and Michael Gough (who has a bit-part as a forgetful archbishop) ever were big stars in their own right. On the whole, this is definitely one to skip!

I saw this movie years ago on the late show - was switching channels and came across Dyan Cannon in Stonehenge... that piqued my interest... and then there was Malcolm McDowell and Liam Neeson... and Edward Woodward as the great wizard Merlin... this movie is Grade Z, but the cast is fantastic... this is one to invite friends over, crack the six-pack and heckle. I'd love to get a copy for this reason alone. I'm surprise MS3K hasn't picked on it yet!