The director of
Training Day and the most popular producer of all time have teamed up to give us what the previews
claim is a "historically accurate" portrayal of King Arthur, his knights and Guinevere. Someone should sue them for false advertising.
King Arthur, of course, presents the story of Arthur (though interchangeably he is called Artorius for added effect) as a British-Roman warrior who, along with his small band of loyal knights, protects the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire from the natives to the north, who all like to paint themselves blue and act like psychopaths. Unfortunately for Arthur, the movie has decidedly been set in the 5th century AD, which means that the Roman Empire is on its last breath and that they are pulling out of Britain. With the Saxons invading from the north, Arthur has to chose between the Romans and his Christian faith and the true people of his home, whom include the warriors that he has been fighting for nearly two decades.
Very little is known about the true Arthur, and there is still much skepticism as to whether he really did ever exist. No one really knows for sure, but those involved in making this movie figured that they could throw out all of the mythical stuff - like Merlin being a wizard and Arthur pulling Excalibur from a rock - and make the story rather gritty so that they could claim in the advertisements that this movie is "based on what truly happened." It''s all a bunch of bull, really, but I must commend director Antoine Fuqua and screenwriter David Franzoni for stretching some concepts so far that there could be no possible way that they could be fictional… Right?