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THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING
Director: Joe Cornish Cast: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Dean Chaumoo, Tom Taylor, Rhianna Dorris, Angus Imrie, Denise Gough, Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Ferguson, Noma Dumezweni, Genevieve O'Reilly MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:00 Release Date: 1/25/19 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | January 25, 2019 Even though it might seem to possess a jokey premise, there's a surprising degree of sincerity to The Kid Who Would Be King. The film supposes that the lineage—either biological or spiritual or both—of King Arthur has continued into the present day, and some ordinary kid in this present time discovers that he's the mythical king's direct ancestor. There are jokes here, to be sure, with pre-teens and teenagers being constantly confounded by a newfound world of swordplay, horseback riding, the chivalric code, and, of course, actual, real-life magic. Writer/director Joe Cornish, though, isn't in it for the humorous clashes of modern and ancient cultures, the mocking of the old ways, or even satirical jabs at the present. It's clear from the start, a dynamic animated prologue in the style of a comic book-like storybook that catches up the audience to Arthurian legend (or, at least, the details that Cornish has decided upon as the "official" tale), that Cornish has genuine affection and admiration for the stories of Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the wizard Merlin. More importantly, he's obviously drawn to all of the ideas and sentiments for which those characters stood. There were problems in Arthur's realm—clashes amongst disparate peoples, disillusionment with the status quo, poverty and strife, and an evil sorceress hell-bent on creating even more chaos. They could be solved, though, if people looked past their differences and saw what united them as Britons, as humans, and as good-hearted people who actually wanted to work together so that everyone could thrive. After that prologue, Cornish reminds us (not that we need the reminder) that our own, modern world is in disarray—with authoritarian leaders or wannabe dictators popping up around the globe, with sweeping distrust of systems that seemed so vital just less than a decade ago, with political and class divisions growing deeper, with the despairing feeling that we've crossed some kind of line and somebody put up a wall so we can't go back. Can an answer to present-day troubles be found in the legend of King Arthur? Cornish seems to think so to a certain extent, but it's less about the magic and the battles and monarchical rule. It's about those ideas of unity and good-hearted behavior, and even then, it's less about those and more about the fact that it's kids who discover them again. Hence, the filmmaker's sophomore feature also shows that he cares more about his characters (well, most of them) than about whatever gimmicky plot in which he might place them. It's fun—rather exciting at times—to see how Cornish blends the old-fashioned action of swords and mystical monsters with the trappings of modernity. That's the gimmick. The heart of the film, though, is in how these young characters figure out that there's more to life than oneself and more to the world than misery. The secret, unknown heir to Arthur is Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), a mostly anonymous middle-schooler being raised by Mary (Denise Gough), a single mother, after Alex's father left them. The kid's best friend is Bedders (Dean Chaumoo), who's routinely bullied by Lance (Tom Taylor), the self-proclaimed "King of the School," and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris), the bully's loyal and steady companion. After saving his pal from the bullies, Alex is given detention. While trying to escape Lance and Kaye in an after-school chase, he finds himself at a construction site, where an old sword is sticking out of the remains of a concrete pillar. Alex pulls the sword, with Latin writing that suggests it's Excalibur, from the stone, and shortly after, a strange teenager appears out of thin air at Stonehenge. The teen, who tries to disguise his true identity by calling himself "Mertin," is a young-in-appearance but actually-quite-old Merlin (Angus Imrie, clearly having a ball with the role, while Patrick Stewart plays the wizard as his younger but older-looking self, who appears to emphasize the importance of certain details to the kids). Merlin, who becomes the most "bully-able" student at Alex's school, warns Alex that, with the arrival of a solar eclipse in four days, Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), Arthur's magically evil half-sister, will return and enslave all of Britain. It's up to Alex to stop her, and to do so, he dubs his friend and his two enemies as his knights. The adventure elements of the story are fairly routine, with battles between the kids and undead skeleton warriors, although Cornish does offer a new dynamic to each action sequence (The kids fight the skeleton in a car, on horseback, and with their classmates in a climactic standoff at their booby-trapped school). Such things feel as if they're of secondary importance to Cornish, though, and the real thrust of the story is how these kids learn to accept and overcome their respective flaws and fears, blossom together as a team, and behave in ways that serve the greater good for themselves and others. Each character (save for Kaye, whom Cornish mostly uses as a second half of Lance) evolves, and for all of the visual effects and action setpieces, the film's most effective moments come from seeing the kids learn to better themselves. That means The Kid Who Would Be King is more than a superficial toying with Arthurian legend. It has a moral to go along with jokes and the action, and after being reminded of the state of the world, it's a clichéd but optimistic one: The children are the future, and let's hope they find better lessons for living than the ones currently and recently around us. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for fantasy action violence, scary images, thematic elements including
some bullying, and language)
