The Kid Who Would Be King
I’ve seen a few different retellings of the Arthur legend over the years, and few were as enjoyable as Joe Cornish’s “The Kid Who Would Be King.” (And yes, I am including “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”) As he did with his directorial debut, “Attack the Block,” Cornish takes a familiar premise and turns it just a few degrees to the left to do something a bit more substantial than what we’ve seen in the past. Ultimately, this is a predictable story, but that’s more because of the different variations of the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that have been made over the years than anything Cornish does; he has a strong vision for what he wants his version of this story to be, and that’s what I enjoyed about this film.
The film takes place in modern-day England, and it follows a young boy named Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), who is being raised by his mother (Denise Gough) and goes to school with his friend, Bedders (Dean Chaumoo), only to get bullied by Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris), on a regular basis. One day after school, after he has stood up for himself and Bedders against Lance and Kaye, Lance and Kaye chase him to an in-progress construction site, where he finds a sword stuck in one of the concrete support beams. He pulls it out, and finds that yes, indeed, this is Excaliber, and he is destined to wield it against the evil sorceress Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), who is getting ready to rise again as a lunar eclipse gets ready to happen in four days time.
Cornish follows many of the conventions of family fantasy-adventure films that any child of the 1980s, or that era of Disney, is familiar with, but he doesn’t just do a paint-by-numbers, facile story here in his riff on the old tale. The vision of Morgana and her minions from the depths of the Earth in this film is striking and evocative, and the scenes where they face off against Alex and his motley crew of “knights,” aided by the sorcerer Merlin (Angus Imrie and Patrick Stewart both get moments to shine in the role), are legitimately suspenseful. The way he tells the familiar Arthur legend at the beginning, which is prologue for everything that happens afterwards, is terrific and sucks you in. And he has cast the kids very well, and written them to fit in with the archetypes of the Arthurian legend while also writing them to the age they are. This isn’t just a matter of Cornish saying, “hey, I want to do a kid version of King Arthur we haven’t seen before,” though; Cornish has some things he wants to say about the present state of both England, and the world in general; he wants to empower kids to make the world a better place, but he also has an emotional journey for Alex to go on with regards to his own personal history that is affecting and draws us in just a little more to the movie. This feels like a movie with real overall stakes, as well as personal stakes, while also putting in weird, lovely touches (like Merlin’s “healing potion” and the way magic use comes into play) that are fun for anyone who enjoys a good adventure yarn. I think the film goes on a bit too long, but “The Kid Who Would Be King” is worth checking out, whether you’re young or old, feel like the Arthur legend has been stretched too thin over the years, or think it’s got a little more juice to it.
