THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING

Louis Ashbourne     Dean Chaumoo     Tom Taylor     Rhianna Dorris

Rebecca Ferguson     Patrick Stewart     Angus Imrie

     Written and directed by Joe Cornish (Attack the Block, Ant-Man, Hot Fuzz), the film is an entertaining mix of fantasy and reality, weaving together tales from King Arthur’s Court and contemporary life at Dungate Academy, where the main four young characters attend school.  It starts out with two fast friends, Alex (Ashbourne) and Bedders (Chaumoo) being bullied by two older students, Lance (Taylor) and Kay (Dorris). Alex and Bedders are nerdy kids who are interested in magic, and are derided by Lance and Kay.  Lance promotes himself as “king” of the school, and uses every opportunity to show it, backed up by his sidekick, Kay. 

     Alex is brave and fights back, especially in defense of his friend.  And one day, when he is running from Lance he ends up at a construction site, briefly assuming himself safe.  But in a confrontation with Lance, he falls over backwards off a fence onto a pile of dirt.  Lance and Kay leave him for dead, but when Alex comes to he sees a huge sword stuck in stone. Curious, he pulls it out with some effort, and runs home with it.

     This is where his and Bedders’ nerdiness comes in handy.  They notice an inscription on the sword written in Latin, and in an example of Cornish’s exquisite blending of history and modern technology, they look up the inscription on Google Translate and find that it says that the sword belongs to King Arthur, son of Tintagel (not a person, but an island).  Putting that together with a book Alex’s missing dad gave him with the message, “to the once and future king”, they begin to wonder mildly if it is Alex who is that “once and future king.”  

     This actually gets corroborated by a strange new student at school who does amazing things, simply with some kind of ritual he performs with his hands and arms.  Merton/Merlin (Imrie and Stewart) informs Alex that he is indeed “the king”, and that he is charged with preparing for a major battle with someone evil for ownership of the sword.  This is Morgana (Ferguson), King Arthur’s half-sister, who has been chained up in vines against a rock for centuries, struggling to get free. She is convinced she is the rightful heir to the throne, and knows that her success requires that she possess the sword (Excalibur).  

     Alex and his three friends/enemies (he needs the aggressive qualities of the bullies in his quest), whom he has knighted, set off to Tintagel Island to locate the entrance to the underworld and wage battle with Morgana.  Along the way, Merlin in his younger and older forms will guide and sometimes rescue them on their quest.  Their journey is engaging; it’s only at the very end the movie starts falling apart.  It would have been better if the last half-hour had been edited out.

     Production design (Marcus Rowland), cinematography (Bill Pope), and special and visual effects make this an enchanting journey that will keep children and adults raptly engaged.  The dragons that appear in the night-time with their brilliantly lit swords trying to catch up with and attack the seekers are truly terrifying, and the way old trees uproot themselves to train the king and knights in fighting is cleverly done and humorous at the same time.

         Alex(played by Director Serkis’ son)is a surprised but charming hero who wins you over with his wonder, valor, and smartness, which Ashbourne gracefully captures.  Chaumoo as Bedders portrays an interesting kid whose loyalty and whose interest and devotion to magic is admirable, as well as providing welcome levity at times.  Tom Taylor gives us a picture of an overly entitled, spoiled rich kid who needs to have his ears pinned back from time to time, but is one who finally learns from it.  Rhianna Dorris evinces the loyal follower who is not quite ready to stand on her own.  Imrie and Stewart playing the young and old Merlin grab your attention and keep you fascinated.  Finally, Rebecca Ferguson convincingly shows us a ferocious, hag-like figure whose greediness for power is unmatched. 

     With all its fantastical, other-world glamour, The Kid Who Would be King contains teaching moments for children (and adults in these modern times) about the necessity for cooperation in overcoming adversity, on the values in the chivalric code (honoring those we love, not being wanton, speaking truth at all times, and persevering to the end in any enterprise), overcoming disillusionment, and the value of diversity in any endeavor.  

If only the chivalric code would be applied in our troubled times!

Grade:  B+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE DARK TOWER

Idris Elba     Matthew McConaughey     Abbey Lee     Tom Taylor     Dennis Haysbert

     “There are other worlds than these”, says a character in The Dark Tower, based on a series of novels by Stephen King.  Apparently, this is a sequel that picks up where the novels end.  And during the film, which starts out in Keystone Earth, we’re transported to the Mid-World, another reality altogether.  First, we meet Jake (Taylor), a rather odd child who gets into trouble so frequently he’s in psychotherapy.  The reason he seems odd is that he has such realistic dreams he begins to think there is more to it.  He draws pictures of what he sees and tries to explain to his mother, his friend, and his therapist what he is sensing, but no one understands.  His mother and his friend just walk away mystified, and his therapist relates his fantasies to the father he has lost.

     In desperation, his mother considers sending him to a “clinic” for the weekend, but Jake is convinced there is nothing wrong with him, and that he is simply trying to understand what his experience is telling him.  When he sees that he’ll be forced to go, and that the driver looks like someone characteristic of people in his dreams, he bolts.

     Jake is clever and brave, managing to elude his pursuers, and follow clues to get to the source of his dreams.  What follows after that, is his being transported (not gently) to the Middle World, where he straightaway encounters Roland The Gunslinger (Elba) of his dreams.  Interestingly, Jake has made detailed drawings of his dreams, and Roland and Walter, the Man in Black (McConaughey), are accurately depicted.  Jake recognizes Roland immediately, but Roland has no idea who Jake is, does not want to be bothered, and really wants to get back to his business of revenge against Walter.  Jake, not willing to be thrust aside, gets drawn into the struggle, and to the film’s credit, a satisfying father-son bonding develops. 

     The film could have been a touching, meaningful (and sometimes it is) journey searching for a lost father.  Unfortunately, the filmmakers make it more a glorification of guns, revenge, and even sugar(!).  (Bad joke about sugar, which kids don’t need to hear.)  Jake is tutored carefully in shooting (which is not necessarily a bad thing) with mantras like, “I don’t kill with my gun; I kill with my mind.”  “I don’t kill with my gun; I kill with my heart.”  “He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.”  But the culmination of all this is a visually spectacular orgy of vengeful gunfire and killing that seems to go on forever (to me).  All this is done in such a way it made me think it was dreamed up by the NRA for an advertisement.

   Instead of the gunfire, I wish the filmmakers had made more of the mind control techniques used by Jake and Roland, which, in the end, were much more powerful.  The film wanted us to think that it was the final gun battle that was the decisive victory, but how much more helpful it would be for young people to see how much their self-discipline and mindfulness could be potent, decisive forces in actualizing events.

     Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey elevate any film they are in, and they are certainly topnotch here.  The cinematography (Rasmus Videbaek) and visual effects make it exciting.  But the problem with this film is in adapting Stephen King’s work to a successful film.  Somewhere along the way, the thrust of his powerful fiction gets diluted.  The director, Nikolaj Arcel, has a fine record (director, A Royal Affair, writer, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo); the producers are acclaimed (e.g., Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Stephen King), and yet it seems less than.  (Could it be that gun advocates like the NRA and sugar dispensers in soft drinks exerted an effect?  I don’t know.)

This is an intriguing story based on Stephen King’s work that misses the mark.

Grade:  D+                                    By Donna R. Copeland