Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

Having some free time tonight, I thought I’d go see King Arthur. The trailer was intriguing, giving some glimpses of Roman armor, Saxon hordes, and Kiera Knightly looking fierce in a skimpy leather outfit. What’s not to like? Unfortunately, the movie failed to follow the modern convention of showing the best and most important scenes in the trailer. If half the scenes in the trailer had actually been in the movie it might actually have had a few watchable moments. As it is . . .

Our story begins with some titles something like this: “Historians have often believed that the 15th-century stories of Arthur and his Knights were based on a British warrior a thousand years before.” Could’a told them that, since the stories feature the Saxon invasion . . . of which the only one was a thousand years before the 15th century. “Now new archeological evidence is bringing to light the true story.” Cool, they’ve finally started digging up Badon Hill.

Now we see a map of Europe with a growing red stain representing the Roman Empire. Hmm. Symbolism, anyone? We learn in voiceover that the Sarmatians were a fierce and warlike tribe in central Asia who fought against the rising Roman tide. Wait a minute. What the hell does this have to do with King Arthur? We learn that the Sarmatians were beaten by the Romans, all but a handful of “knights”, and that thereafter they provided their sons as “knights” for the Roman armies. Interesting, because a 30-second Google run turns up the inconvenient fact that the Sarmatians were never, in fact, conquered by the Romans, and their cultural influence extended to medieval Europe. Chalk it up to poetic license, I guess. Still, what does this have to do with Kind Arthur?

Now we open with some horse nomads — Sarmatians, presumably, whose relationship to King Arthur we still have no idea of — tearfully giving up a dewy-cheeked boy to some sadistic-looking Roman drill sergeants. Hmm. If I were the Roman in charge of recruiting mounted auxiliaries for the Roman army, I’d want someone a little older and more experienced in battle, not a teenager. I’d suspect the Roman drill sergeants were actually Greek, but we learn later about Lancelot’s way with the ladies. Yes, gentlebeings, finally we have a connection to the story we paid to watch portrayed. Turns out our youngster is Lancelot. What exactly he’s doing in Sarmatia is unclear.

OK, now we skip to fifteen years later, and the voiceover tells us that the Sarmatian Knights’ term of service is almost over. Term of service where? Well, since Sarmatia is on the eastern edge of the Empire, you’d think it’d be somewhere in the East, where the Sarmatians’ knowledge of fighting on the plains and their hot-weather-bred horses would come in handy. Instead we find they’d been stationed in hilly, forested, cold and rainy Britain, under the command of one . . . wait for it . . . Arturius. Whew, I was almost ready to ask for my money back. Turns out I should have anyway, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Well, Arturius is quite the noble Roman “commander” — guess the research budget didn’t extend to another 30-second Google search to pick one of: Decurion, Centurion, Tribune, or Legate. He commands a motly squad of six “knights”, their original numbers having been whittled down during years of fighting. Guess the Sarmatians had no more boy children during that time. Now the word “knight”, as applied to the Romans, usually means a member of the elite Equestrian class of citizen, not random barbarian draftees, but maybe Arturius was just being polite to his buds. Who, despite being pressed at the ages of at most fifteen or so, don’t use any Roman equipment — or tactics, as we’ll see later. I guess they learned from stories that Samartians were supposed to use recurved bows and scimitars and wear fur hats.

Anyway, we begin with our heroes riding to meet a Bishop who carries their discharge papers. Why a Bishop and not some sort of Roman official is not made clear. But lo, the Bishop’s party is being attacked by these sort of Pictish-looking folks, whom the scripwriters have chosen to call “Woads”, on account of that’s what they use as war-paint.

Anyway, the Bishop, having cleverly made himself less of a target by disguising himself as a plumed, red-cloaked officer on a tall horse at the front of the column, and leaving a hapless assistant to be shot through a tiny chink in the armored carriage, survives the ambush. Not from any actions of his couple dozen guards, who upon being attacked mill about in a visually interesting but undisciplined style which allows them to be shot in the back and/or swarmed by skinny naked abos, instead of, say, forming a line with shields and swords pointed toward the enemy. No, the knights thunder in to the rescue.

Here I pause to digress on a subject which those that know me will recognize is dear to my heart: stirrups. My enjoyment of Gladiator was considerably lessened by all the stirrups in that movie, and most of the faint praise I gave Troy is for the courage to leave ’em out. Now King Arthur is set late enough in history for there to be stirrups, especially since it was horse nomads like the Sarmatians who introduced them to the Empire. However, the whole point of having stirrups was in order to anchor the rider enough for him to use a spear to puncture his opponents from a safe distance.

But our own Samartians appear not to have heard of this tactic. They come galloping in, firing arrows into the forest at enemies they can’t see, dismount, and begin milling about in the same picturesque fashion as their hapless co-beligerants before them. Only the mojo of the newcomers is such that they overcome the natives, but not before one of the painted forest people begs to be killed by the Holy Sword Excaliber. OK, cool, we’re going to have some mystical sword action in this movie. Don’t get your hopes up.

OK, we’ve got our knights and Bishop to their fort next to Hadrian’s wall, which divides England from Scotland, and mostly keeps the new-age body-painted people out. The Bishop brings out the knights’ discharge papers, only to whisk them out of sight. Psych! There’s one more mission the knights have to do for Rome. It involves going north of the Wall, through Pict-infested woods and Saxon armies to rescue a Roman who’s enjoying a vacation in his summer house up there (huh?). Now let’s examine the situation. In the room is one middle-aged bishop, his nerdy assistant, and a box of discharge papers on the table. Around which are seven armed and armored knights, who are suddenly faced with the prospect of a suicidal mission through enemy territory to rescue a sun-tanning aristo before they can go back to sunny Sarmatia. Um, folks, the Bishop has collapsed, no doubt tired as a result of his travels. Here’s your discharge papers, you’re free to go! Pay no attention to the lump on the Bishop’s forehead.

However, that would have brought the movie to a merciful (but premature) end, so off go the knights. At a canter, without evident supplies of any kind. One would assume that the aristo’s villa is just a few miles north of the Wall (again, huh?). But no, our heroes spend what seems several nights in the open getting rained on. Whatever; I’m past sweating the small details like food and shelter.

Now the knights have led their horses off of the open road they’ve been on, into a tangled forest where the advantage of being mounted is nullified. They exchange significant glances, and allow as how they are now surrounded by the Blue-Skinned Ones. Rather than rapidly retreating from this ambush, or rapidly attacking the ambushing Bad-Hair-Day Merry Men head-on, they continue riding slowly along, until the “Woads”, bored with the stupidity of their supposedly invincible enemies, start firing arrows randomly into the air and stringing ropes from the trees, apparently to trap the horses. Now in the rather rapid cuts that make up this sequence, it looks like these ropes in fact include barbed wire, but since this technology was presumably not available to pre-modern forest dwellers, we’ll assume the barbs are actually thorny branches or some such, and thus susceptible to easy partition by, say, a sword swung from horseback. But our heroes have never heard of this tactic, either, and they ride around in invincible but ever-decreasing circles until suddenly the cyanotic flower children decide playtime’s over for the day and disappear. In a brilliant moment of illumination, Arturius remarks sagely, “They didn’t want us dead.”

So the knights arrive at the Roman aristo’s estate, where they find him and his four guards beating up on dozens of peasants. North of the Wall, remember, in the middle of a howling wilderness surrounded by woods full of Britons who have a grudge against Romans going back five centuries to when Julius Ceaser first landed. My head is starting to hurt at this point.

Now we cut to the landing of the Saxons, where there’s a bit of squabbling over the native women, and some tension is set up between the Saxon leader (Stellan Skarsgaard, in a role so far beneath him his only expression throughout the entire film is one of unbearably weary resignation, just waiting for the damn thing to end) and his son. We see that the son is ambitious, and will soon challenge his father for the leadership.

Back at the ranch, Art and his buds rescue the peasants, shanghai the aristo, and find a crypt where some mad monks, inspired no doubt by time-travelling Spanish Inquisitioners (nobody expects ’em, dontcha see), have locked up several other peasants and one Pictish Princess. We learn that the Saxons have blocked the way back to the Wall, so we have to detour over the Rocky Mountains. I’ve never actually been that far north in England, but I don’t recall ever hearing about such high and snowy peaks there.

Anyway, the trip is enlivened only by Arthur claiming that Kiera’s fingers are broken and he has to straighten them, which gives him a chance to hold hands with her for most of the trip. Until we get to the frozen lake. Now six knights and horses in mail armor, plus a couple of wagons and a couple hundred peasants, walk straight across the middle of the lake, instead of, say, around the edges, where even if the ice breaks they’ll only get their feet wet. Luckily they make it across without more incident than a few cracking and booming noises.

But wait, a detachment of Saxons has caught up to them! So our heroes send the peasants on their way down the trail and prepare to ambush the maurading hordes. Not at the narrow mouth of the valley where the six of them, joined by Kiera, who is disappointingly wearing a dress, could hold off any number of thanes and huscarls one-handed all day, but in the middle of the damn lake. Oh, and by the way we see that the Saxons have been buying crossbows, no doubt from some time-travelling Venetians or something.

The Saxons are so intimidated by six guys and Kiera’s scowling that they bunch up into a shield wall in the middle of the ice. So Kiera can fire arrows into their midst without worrying much about aiming. And one of the knights can enterprisingly chop the ice out from under the feet of the Saxons with his trusty battleaxe. He gets shot for his pains and dies, which he quite frankly deserves for not thinking of this before the battle.

Anyway, the rest of us make it back to the Wall in time for the final battle. Only, the Roman troops, along with Art’s knights, are leaving. But Kiera makes eyes (that’s a euphamism for something else, kiddies) at Arthur, so he stays to lead the bright blue irregulars, whom he’s been slaughtering all his life, against the Saxons, who have drawn up on the north side of the wall.

Of course, the knights haven’t really left. There’s actually a rather cool scene where they wordlessly decide to go back and fight with Arturius, and he wordlessly greets them, and they wordlessly decide to fight and die gloriously together, and then Arthur starts making this incredibly wordy and long-winded speech the contents of which I don’t remember because I was shouting “Put a sock in it!” at the screen.

So, we finally get to the big climactic fight. Let’s examine the order of battle. On the one side we’ve got a couple thousand burly Saxon carls, in mail and leather armor, armed with broadswords, battle axes and large round shields. On the other, we have several hundred scrawny and undernourished but well-painted forest children, armed at best with kitchen knives stolen from the Saxons. Some of them do have bows, though. Plus six knights on horseback and one screeching teenage girl in (finally!) the traditional Scottish boiled-leather bikini. Oh, and a couple of catapults capable of hurling Greek Fire over long distances. PLUS A FRIGGING TWENTY-FOOT WALL THAT DIVIDES THE COUNTRY IN HALF.

So our tactical genius Arturius Rex doesn’t bother posting his archers and catapults along the wall where they can whittle away at the Saxon ranks all day. No, he opens the gate and withdraws, lighting a few smoke pots on the way. So the Saxons, certain there’s a trick (if only), send a scouting force through. Whereupon they get bloodied by the British archers and harrassed by the cavalry on their flanks; OK, maybe Arthur does know a tiny bit about tactics, if not the part about defensive walls. Indeed the archers seem to miraculously know when to stop firing into the smoke so the knights can make a run. Must have been sold some walkie-talkies by some time-travelling…

But by this time the rest of the Saxons have poured through the open gate, the Britons charge, and a general melee ensues. At this point the British archers climb up on the wall and start firing into the scrum, ensuring they hit about as many of their own as the enemy. Oh, and the catapults have been lobbing Greek Fire into the crowd as well, just for kicks. Do the knights continue their successful tactics from a moment before, harrassing the flanks of the enemy, or wait in reserve to mount a charge against weak points in the enemy line? Of course not. They dismount and die gloriously, most of them. And the ones that didn’t deserved to, the stupid gits. I think the Britons won, but by no fault of their own.

I think there was also a scene where Arthur and Kiera get married, but by this time I was being carried struggling out of the building by several security guards, feebly shouting lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, so I’m sorry to report total ignorance on the style of her wedding dress. But if it wasn’t the boiled-leather bikini I wouldn’t be interested anyway.

Oh, wait. There were some plot threads we were promised that never showed up. That bit about Excalibur being holy and mystical and all? Turns out it was just Daddy’s sword. The bit about the Saxon leader and his son? Well, the son never did anything but glower and get killed by Kiera in the end.

And where, you might ask, was the main theme of every single Arthur story down through history, the love triangle? I may have missed it due to the frequency at which my eyes were rolling, but I saw no evidence of it at all. It’s like, come on, scriptwriters. You’ve got Arthur, Lancelot and Gwenivere, the sword, the round table, Merlin, everything. GIVE US THE FRIGGING LOVE TRIANGLE. I guess maybe it was in the trailer or something, but if that’s what you go to see King Arthur for, you’ll miss out on it. Among many, many other things.