The Kid Who Would Be King

I went to the movie at the Cineplex.  The audience was elderly -- that is, my age.  I wondered why a half-dozen old couples (a big crowd in  Austin) were plunking down good money to see a British film for children.  After interminable ads and coming attractions for sex-murder movies -- odd I thought for a movie for kids -- the film started with glossy second-unit images of flowers in idyllic meadows.  These are the kind of bland eye-candy images that seem untouched by human hands.  I was surprised to see that the British film was produced by Malpaso -- I thought that was Clint Eastwood's production company.  The close-ups of flowers continued, now showing potted plants in what seemed to be a greenhouse.  An old man was working with the flowers.  To my surprise, it was Clint Eastwood.  Inadvertently, I had wandered into his film The Mule .  Alarmed, I jumped out of my seat, spilled some popcorn, and, then, hurried into the adjacent theater.  The screen showed a dark and stormy night and a boy lying atop a pile of brown dirt.   The kid stood up, approached a boulder in the center of the construction site in which a gleaming sword was inserted.  The boy, a plump happy-looking kid, pulled the sword from the stone to portentous music and a light show.  I was in the right theater watching The Kid who would be King (2019), a reimagining of the Arthurian legends set in modern-day post-Brexit England,

The Kid who would be King is targeted to young teens and it is overtly didactic.  Here are the lessons that the movie teaches:

1.  Virtue is not related to wealth or prestige or power:  it is an innate to one's character;

2.  Evil divides, goodness unites;

3.  Always tell the truth;

4.  Be courageous;

5.  Persevere in doing good;

6.  If Evil seems to win the day, do not despair -- the arc of the universe is toward righteousness and justice.

The film teaches other lessons as well, some of which I seem to have forgotten.  These lessons are worthy of being learned and should be held close to the heart for the entirety of your life.  Thus, the movie is worthy in its own right and appealing.  It's also a little bit too long and like many super-hero films has not one but two climaxes when one climax, in fact, would suffice. 

A 12-year old named Alexander goes to a private school called Dungate.  His father is absent, living supposedly in Tintagel.  The boy's mother has told him that Alexander's father "had to fight his demons."  Alexander thinks this is literal -- that is, his father was some kind of goblin-slayer.  (In fact, she means the Alexander's father was a irredeemable alcoholic.)  Alexander finds the sword in the stone, pulls it forth with no difficulty, and, then, reads a book that his father gave him before he vanished -- the tale of King Arthur.  The boy finds solace in the story and, with his friend, sets off on a quest to save Britain from the gathering forces of darkness:  these forces are both literal (an oncoming eclipse) and figurative -- that is, the current epidemic of political cruelty, greed, and intolerance.  Morgana le Fay imprisoned by roots underground unleashes hordes of demons on horseback to harry the boy and his fellow knights, Sir Kay and Sir Lancelot (both of them slightly older kids).  The round-table knights are multi-ethnic and courageous.   They penetrate in Morgana's underground inferno (she's trapped beneath Glastonbury Abbey) and ostensibly destroy her -- this is the first climax.  But she's only wounded and she reappears to lay siege of Dungate School.  Alexander knights his classmates and an apocalyptic battle occurs in the darkness of the solar eclipse.  The final battle is well-staged and the action sequences make sense -- they are choreographed so that you can see what is happening and ingeniously designed.  Indeed, the second climax's climax, the duel of Morgan le Fay who has a become a huge fire-belching dragon with a skeletal face curiously similar to the elderly Clint Eastwood, is quite exciting and, on its own terms, plausible.  England is saved and the sword Excalibur returned to the Lady of the Lake.  In an early sequence, Merlin played by a kid with preternaturally long neck (he looks like one of Pontormo's Madonnas) urges Alexander and his chum to go to a fried chicken place on Boorman lane.  This is homage to John Boorman's wonderful film Excalibur which this movie resembles and, in fact, replicates shot by shot in the final sequence in which the magic sword is returned to the Lady of the Lake and the vasty deep.  You should know that Sir Ian McClellan plays Merlin as a old wizard -- it's a reprise of his role as Gandalf, and imitates Nicol Williamson in Boorman's film, but it's always good to see the old fellow on screen. The Kid who would be King is pretty good and moving in the simplicity of the lessons that it teaches.  It's not wholly successful, but is clever, fairly funny, and means well.  There are many films released about which you can not say as much.