King Arthur

Clive Owen is the eponymous leader of a cohort of the Sarmatian cavalry - on their last mission after a 15 year attachment to the now retreating Roman army. This mission requires them to head to the northern reaches of Britain - beyond Hadrian's wall - to rescue a family whose teenage son is a favoured godson of the Pope. The Saxons are menacingly poised above the wall, heading south and Merlin's Woads are all around, seemingly quite content to let the Romans and the Saxons sort it out between themselves and then take the prize from the weakened victors. This is an ok adventure yarn with a decent cast of British stalwarts - Ioan Gruffudd, Ray Winstone, Joel Edgerton and Hugh Dancy amongst his comrades, as well as Mads Mikkelsen and his hawk all trekking the country fighting as they go. The photography is good, and the battle scenes - especially on the frozen lake is also quite effective. Sadly, though the lead acting is really lacklustre. Clive Owen, Ray Winstone (with his baby's arm holding an apple) and Saxon chief Stellan Skarsgård are all really poor - with very little by way of decent dialogue to help them out either. Keira Knightley turns out to be quite proficient with an arrow but otherwise very little of this is on target. Despite a nice bit of singing from Lisa Gerrard, I cannot imagine this got a cinema release - but it just about kills an overlong two hours on the telly if it's wet outside.