King Arthur

King Arthur is a 2004 film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Franzoni. It stars Clive Owen as the title character.

The producers of the film claim to present a historically accurate version of the Arthurian legends, supposedly inspired by new archaeological findings. The accuracy of these claims is subject to debate, but the film is unusual in representing Arthur as a Roman officer rather than a medieval knight. It was shot in England, Ireland, and Wales.

Arthur, also known as Artorius Castus (Clive Owen), is portrayed as a Roman cavalry officer, the son of a Roman father and a Celtic mother, who leads a military force of Sarmatian auxiliary cavalry in Britain at the close of the Roman occupation in 467 A.D. He and his men guard Hadrian's Wall against the Woads, a Celtic people who resist Roman rule, based on the historical Picts, led by the mysterious Merlin. He is not the first Arthur — for generations, his ancestors have manned the Wall, leading Sarmatian auxiliaries.

As the film starts, Arthur and his remaining knights Lancelot, Bors, Tristan, Gawain, Galahad and Dagonet - are expecting discharge from the service of the Empire after faithfully serving for 15 years (Lancelot's voiceover is heard at the beginning and end of the film, and his entry into service as a youth in 452 A.D. is depicted at the beginning).

However, on the night they ought to receive their freedom, they are dispatched on a final and possibly suicidal mission by Bishop Germanius in the freezing winter to rescue the important Roman family of Marius Honorius from impending capture by the invading Saxons, led by their chief Cerdic and his son Cynric. Marius' son, Alecto, is the Pope's favorite godson and may be "destined to be Pope one day", according to the Bishop. The knights are charged with this rescue because Rome is withdrawing from Britain, now considered an indefensible outpost.

At the remote estate, Arthur explains his mission to Marius, who becomes defensive and refuses to leave his grand home. Marius is revealed to have oppressed his serfs on the pretense of speaking for God. While being shown an elder who has been whipped and left tied up out in the elements for holding back food, Arthur advises that Marius does not speak for God. He frees the elder and tells them all that they were "free from their first breath". Arthur soon discovers Marius has also immured pagans: a Woad, Guinevere (Keira Knightley), and a small boy, Lucan. Arthur frees them and decides to take everyone, along with Marius' family, back to Hadrian's Wall.

Along the journey, Guinevere tells Arthur of the "fairy tales" she'd heard of him, and Arthur is revealed to be half Celt (on his mother's side). Arthur resets the fingers in Guinevere's hand. One night, Guinevere takes Arthur to meet with Merlin, the leader of the Woads and her father. At first, Arthur thinks Guinevere has betrayed him, but Merlin has come in peace. It is revealed in flashback that Arthur's mother had died in a Woad attack when he was a boy. Merlin says that he did not wish for Arthur's mother to die; she was of their blood, as is Arthur. Arthur's famous sword, Excalibur, is also shown to be his father's, which marked his father's burial mound. Arthur pulled it from his father's burial mound in an effort to rescue his mother from a burning building. Merlin suggests an alliance between the Woads and the Sarmatian knights.

Along the route one dawn, Marius forces a standoff with his own soldiers, taking the boy Lucan hostage. Guinevere uses a bow to shoot Marius dead; his guards stand down and aid the knights in getting all the people to the wall. Tristan returns from scouting the area and tells Arthur that a whole Saxon army is on the move.

The group soon encounter the Saxons at an ice-covered river. The knights stay behind to hold up the Saxons and allow the refugees to escape. Greatly outnumbered, Arthur, Guinevere and the knights attempt to repel them with arrows; the battle is won when Dagonet runs to the middle of the ice and breaks it with an axe, at the cost of his life — however, many Saxons are killed.

Struck by Rome leaving its subjects to the mercy of the Saxons, Arthur is further disillusioned when he learns that Bishop Pelagius, whose teachings about the equality of all men inspired the brotherhood of his Round Table — has been executed as a heretic by order of Bishop Germanius himself.

In due course, Arthur and his remaining men forsake Roman citizenship and form an alliance with the Woads to fight the Saxons. In the climatic battle, the Battle of Badon Hill, the Woads catapult flaming missiles at the Saxon army, and when the hosts meet, Guinevere engages in combat with Cynric. Cerdic fights and kills Tristan before facing off with Arthur. Meanwhile, Cynric disarms Guinevere and nearly kills her before Lancelot intervenes and duels Cynric alone. While another Saxon captures Lancelot's attention for a moment, Cynric shoots Lancelot with a Saxon crossbow. Though mortally wounded, Lancelot manages to kill Cynric, and he dies with Guinevere at his side. Arthur kills Cerdic, and the Saxons are defeated.

Though Arthur is victorious, the events of the film have led to the loss of his faith in Rome as a bastion of justice, and in the Christian God. After realizing that the Rome of his ideals exists only in his dreams, Arthur also despairs over the deaths of his men after he had trusted in God to keep them safe. The film ends with Arthur and Guinevere's pagan marriage. Merlin then proclaims him to be their king. King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and his remaining knights promise to lead the Britons, united with the defeat of the Saxons and retreat of the Romans, against future invaders. The last scene shows Lancelot, Dagonet and Tristan reincarnated as horses and roaming the lands freely, while Lancelot speaks of the fact that their names will live forever in legend.

• Clive Owen - Arthur
• Keira Knightley - Guinevere
• Ioan Gruffudd - Lancelot
• Mads Mikkelsen - Tristan
• Joel Edgerton - Gawain
• Hugh Dancy - Galahad
• Ray Winstone - Bors
• Ray Stevenson - Dagonet
• Stephen Dillane - Merlin
• Stellan Skarsgård - Cerdic
• Til Schweiger - Cynric
• Sean Gilder - Jols
• Pat Kinevane - Horton
• Ivano Marescotti - Bishop Germanus
• Ken Stott - Marius Honorius
• Lorenzo De Angelis - Alecto

  The film's storyline is mostly original, save for the elements of Saxons as Arthur's adversaries and the Battle of Badon Hill.

• Many of the traditional elements of the legends are dropped, like the Holy Grail and Tristan's lover Iseult. The film omits the love triangle between Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere except for mutual attraction between the latter two.

  The knights' characterizations in the legends are also dropped. The boorish and lusty Bors, father of many children, is very different from his namesake whose purity and celibacy allowed him to witness the Holy Grail.

  The film does not feature Kay and Bedivere. Along with Gawain, they already appear as Arthur's companions in very early sources, like Culhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion. The portrayal of Bors, however, is much closer to the traditional depiction of Kay than his legendary namesake.

  Lancelot and Galahad are portrayed as having similar ages while according to traditional versions they are father and son respectively (this approach is also found in modern Arthurian fiction — such as Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles, in which they are brothers).

  In the film, Lancelot fights using two swords. In Arthurian legend the "Knight with Two Swords" is the ill-fated Sir Balin, but this refers to a cursed sword he keeps, not his fighting style.

  Guinevere is drastically altered from Arthurian legend — she is portrayed as a barbarian warrior who joins Arthur and the knights in battle. While there was historical precedent for this portrayal (for example, the warrior queen Boudica), no source, early or late, describes Guinevere in this way. Nor is there any evidence for her depiction as a rustic Celt; in fact, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, which contains one of the oldest accounts of the character, Guinevere has Roman blood while Arthur is an indigenous Celt.

  Dagonet, a self-sacrificing warrior in the film, has Arthur's court jester as his namesake. The character appears in Le Morte D'Arthur and Idylls of the King.

  Tristan has a pet hawk. In Welsh legends, a figure named Gwalchmai is commonly considered identical with Gawain (both are nephews of Arthur); a popular though unlikely proposed meaning of his name is "hawk of May".

  The role of traitor, typically ascribed to Mordred, is given a smaller part in the form of a young British scout, played by Alan Devine, who betrays his people to the Saxons. The character is unnamed, but called "British Scout" in the credits. Tristan kills the traitor with an arrow from the other side of Hadrian's Wall during the climactic battle.

  Despite the film's historical angle, Merlin was not originally part of the legends. It is generally agreed that he is based on two figures - Myrddin Wyllt (Myrddin the Wild), and Aurelius Ambrosius, a highly fictionalized version of the historical war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus. The former had nothing to do with Arthur and flourished after the Arthurian period. This composite Merlin was created by Geoffrey of Monmouth.