The truth doesn't set you free in "King Arthur." It just makes you want to take a shower.
Think of "King Arthur" as "The Real World: Camelot" — minus Camelot and the alcohol intake usually displayed on the MTV series. This is what happens when filmmakers decide to throw away the legends and get real. As in really boring.
A distant, relatively bloodless cousin to "Braveheart" and "Gladiator" (all the blood is on the swords instead of the bodies), "King Arthur" is the product of countless hours of historical research and attentive production and costume design. It's purportedly so accurate you could write a research paper on it.
So what? "King Arthur" wears its politically correct and historically earnest heart on its chain-mail sleeve, but it has no soul. What producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Antoine Fuqua apparently forgot is that if you're going to make an epic that will re-educate viewers about long-held assumptions, you need to make it entertaining.
This didactic "King Arthur" tells us that the King Arthur of myth is based on a real person who lived not in the Middle Ages but in the Dark Ages, in the fifth century. He was a Roman officer in charge of a specialized cavalry made up of men from Sarmatia (in the neighborhood of the modern Republic of Georgia) who were bound by a pact made with Marcus Aurelius.
Arthur (Clive Owen) and his men have fought long and hard defending Roman settlements in Britain, and the Sarmatians are due their freedom. But Bishop Germanius (Ivano Marescotti) insists they perform one more mission. Rome is withdrawing its troops from Britain to deal with unrest at home, and a Roman nobleman and his family need to be extricated from north of Hadrian's Wall. Once they are brought to safety, Arthur's men will receive their release papers.
Arthur convinces Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd) and the others to undertake the dangerous mission. Not only do they have to elude the guerrilla forces of the native Picts, or Woads, led by the shaman Merlin (Stephen Dillane), but they also have to deal with the invading Saxons, led by Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgard) and his son, Cynric (Til Schweiger).
Cerdic's philosophy is to never leave alive any man, woman or child who could raise a sword against him, so Arthur feels obligated to rescue not just the Roman family but also every Briton he comes across. One of those is a young woman, Guinevere (Keira Knightley), who turns out to be a Woad warrior.
Although the cast is a veritable dream team, the film doesn't give many of the actors a chance to connect with the audience. The exceptions are Winstone, who provides welcome comic relief, and Skarsgard, who reeks of Dark Ages evil.
Owen is crippled by having to voice hogwash about freedom and self-determination. Knightley delivers similar anachronistic dialogue and, by the end, looks like Winona Ryder in a bad dominatrix costume. Gruffudd spends most of his screen time scowling.
Aside from one cool confrontation on a frozen lake, the battle scenes are hackneyed and lack suspense. There's so much dirt, posing and slow-mo, "King Arthur" almost could be accused of being a Dark Ages photo op.
"King Arthur" is rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences, a scene of sensuality and some language. Running time: 125 minutes.