#GUY RITCHIE MIKE THE SPIKE KING ARTHUR MOVIE#

This latter section exists, without embarrassment, for two reasons: perspective (for you) and incentive (for me). Titles in my Honorable Mention sections have been limited to 10, and the titles listed under Blind Spots are just that: films that have eluded me over the years for whatever reason. theatrical release dates-go by their IMDB year. All films prior to 2001-the year I started ranking films on Slant based on their U.S. Joking it may partly be, yet with its allegiances to Britain’s future generation, the film becomes another politically charged return to this most potent national myth.This Top 10 project began as a rolling engagement on Slant Magazine’s blog in late 2005.

By putting Excalibur in the hands of a gawky schoolkid, Cornish’s film offers a lighter-hearted alternative both to epic cinematic follies and delusions of national grandeur. This focus on the young in The Kid Who Would Be King is both cinematically welcome and topical in light of the generational schisms and social divisions highlighted and brought about by Brexit – a point highlighted by Cornish himself. Here are the five ancient Britons who make up the myth of King Arthur It’s also familiar territory for Kid Who Would Be King director Joe Cornish, whose 2011 debut, Attack the Block, banded inner-city youths against an alien invasion, as well as the Metropolitan Police. Edgar Wright’s 2013 The World’s End (another Working Title production) was a jokey modern take on Arthurian myth, its 12-pint pub crawl – led by fallen leader Gary King – its own legendary Grail quest. Other recent films have trodden the same ground. Here, the global genre of the epic is localised and brought down to earth – in this case, by transferring the legend to a modern secondary school, with a cast barely into their teens. Rejuvenating Arthurīy contrast, The Kid Who Would Be King offers a twist to this model. Like the Harry Potter films, it exemplifies the globalised nature of cinema: a “local” story financed by multinational capital, shot in a Hollywood-owned British studio and made for worldwide distribution. Ironically, then, this fiercely British film is “British” only in a limited sense.

#GUY RITCHIE MIKE THE SPIKE KING ARTHUR MOVIE#

Made at huge expense by Warner Bros at its Leavesden studios – and with the creative input of Harry Potter producer Lionel Wigram – Ritchie’s movie was itself seen as another global franchise in the making – until it flopped at the box-office. The film inherits much of its style and narrative tropes from Ridley’s Scott’s Gladiator (2000), the epic that revived the genre, and demonstrated the international appeal of ancient stories.

Similarly, The Legend of the Sword’s debt is less to contemporary politics and more to the recent traditions of epic film. The Holy Grail’s contrast to Hollywood’s widescreen spectacles, such as Knights of the Round Table (1953) or Camelot (1967), is part of its comic point. Monty Python’s muddy take on the story may take its cues from realist European films such as 1973’s Lancelot du lac – but its cut-price epic style is born of the group having no money to spend: a common issue with British films of the impoverished 1970s. More to the point, Arthurian films tell us about the cinematic contexts that produced them. Yet these largely obscure the King’s earlier, more militaristic depictions. The more dewy aspects of the legends – the Sword and the Stone, the Lady of the lake, Avalon – were recounted by Thomas Malory in 1485 and form the basis of all the most popular Arthurian retellings. Yet it does draw on some of the Arthurian fables’ more nationalistic elements. Ritchie’s film was greeted in some quarters as a film about Brexit, but it could just as easily be an allegory about the Corbynite “revolution”, if you wanted it to. Yet the film still ends with the newly crowned king demanding fealty from the Vikings, while rejecting their demands for British slaves. The war here, with his usurping uncle, Vortigern, is more a people’s rebellion. Ritchie transposes his familiar London “low-life” milieu to the world of the Round Table, with his muscular Arthur a brothel-raised orphan, backed up by a multicultural array of petty thieves and streetfighters. The Legend of the Sword is a popular retelling in every sense.

The contexts of Brexit, inevitably, provide a backdrop to the more recent films.

Guy ritchie mike the spike king arthur