Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

We forget that one doesn’t have to be an adult to become a hero or a leader of men. Sometimes the most worthy, willing and noble of champions, come as kids.

The Synopsis
Alex Elliot (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) is just trying to get by. He has questions about his absentee father that his mother refuses to answer, and he and his best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) are constant targets for the school bullies.

Not much else can go wrong for the twelve-year-old until he finds an ancient sword in a block of stone at a construction site. However, Alex and Bedder know that the stuff of fairy tales aren’t to be taken seriously – that is until Alex is attacked and the new boy Mertin claims to be the legendary wizard Merlin (Angus Imrie and Patrick Stewart).

Darkness is approaching as Morgana (Rebecca Furguson) awakens. Alex needs to turn foe to friend and prepare to defend his kingdom against the oncoming forces of evil.

The Good
I am really into the whole King Arthur legend. I enjoy remakes, adaptations for all audiences, and particularly hold in high regard both the BBC Television Series Merlin (2008-2012) as well as the grossly misunderstood King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017), in high regard.

That being said, I thought The Kid Who Would Be King did really well for itself in terms of adapting the story of King Arthur into a modernised and young audience aimed movie. They used the more well-known aspects of the legend as building blocks; Merlin, Morgana, Sword in a Stone – and created a believable adventures story that also humorously didn’t shy away from its tropes.

Normally I’m not partial to child actors (they all have that annoying stage school curated voice that just gets my goat) but thought the principal four characters actors were enjoyable. Alex was a sweet, reluctant but determined hero, and you couldn’t help but completely adore the soft-spoken Bedders. It was also nice seeing Tom Taylor as Lance, who you will know from the BBC series Doctor Foster.

A nice touch for the older audience members like myself was the surprising number of cameos from familiar British faces.

If that last name Serkis immediately had you thinking of actor Andy Serkis known for Gollum from the Lord of the Rings series, Ceasar of the latest remake of Planet of the Apes and Black Panther antagonist Ulysses Klause – then 100 points to your Hogwarts house, lead actor Louis Ashbourne Serkis is, in fact, his son.

The Bad
This could be seen as a positive for others but I’m putting this down in the negative space, which is; This movie would not end. There were a number of false progressions and almost endings. The whole movie seemed to take two steps forward and one step back, which overall made the movie feel longer than it actually was.

There were some comic elements in the movie that did make me laugh out loud but the majority of the punchlines that should have hit home were in the trailer, so fell short, which is of course disappointing. What makes it even worse is that I only ever watch a trailer once – and the one for this movie I saw several months ago – it was no surprise the audience in my theatre were mostly silent.

On the note of audience: Aside from my grown ass self during the Sunday afternoon screening, the cinema was parents and young children – neither of which gave much of a reaction to events. I know this isn’t a real indication of a movie’s reception but I find it quite telling.

The Conclusion
The Kid Who Would Be King comes from the usual British Film suspects; Big Talk Production and Working Title Films, and it was incredibly British – which isn’t a bad thing as something we don’t have a lot of in the UK are live action movies aimed at a younger audience.

For what it was, I enjoyed it well enough and believe it did its job, though I admit I didn’t love it as much as I expected too.

Mostly I hope, this signifies a change in the UK film industry to give more opportunities to young actors/actresses as well as building a new generation of homegrown cinema fanatics.