The Sheila Variations

Reviews like this one --

are why I absolutely love David Edelstein. He wrote one of my favorite terrible reviews for Battlefield Earth (compilation of quotes seen here) - where he wrote: "He zaps Jonnie with a knowledge ray and then, for some reason, lets him read the Declaration of Independence. I'm not sure what happens next because I went out for malted milk balls and then remembered I owed my mom a phone call."

When a movie is bad, I get excited to read Edelstein. Bad movie reviews (well written ones) are some of my greatest pleasures.

Anyway, the reviews for King Arthur are coming in - and they're not all that bad. Not raves, to be sure, but not bad.

Everyone is commenting, however, on the lack of magic (making Merlin just your basic old man), the lack of Holy Grail-ness, the lack of round table ... basically, the lack of anything even resembling the story of King Arthur.

Some of my favorite quotes from Edelstein's review are:

As a nonhistorian who hasn't kept up with the latest archeological finds but who still likes to go around singing, "I wonder what the king/ is doing tonight/ What merriment is the king/ pursuing tonight," I could hardly wait to meet the authentic once and future king. I wondered what the king was doing that night.

In the review, Arthur is described as "verisimilitudinous"

I would also describe him as "pulchritudinous" - but that's just me.

Now, I'm sorry to offend Bill, but Edelstein finds the perfect way (in my opinion) to describe Keira Knightley:

a hotcha Woad who looks like Winona Ryder stretched out

Edelstein goes on:

"He tortured me," she says. "With machines." Then she adds, "I'm Guinevere." That's some revision! At first too weak to talk, Guinevere is soon lecturing Arthur nonstop in perfect Oxbridge know-it-all diction about his habit of killing his own people, whereupon I thought about torturing her with machines myself. But it's hard to hate her too much when she wriggles into a fetching halter, paints herself green, and picks up a bow and arrow, determinedly setting that long fish jaw. You go, you saucy Woaden wench!

"long fish jaw"??

A typical Edelstein-ian sentence:

I did not know much about Saxons until now. Apparently, they were heavy-metal Road Warrior types with exceptional hearing.

Edelstein actually enjoyed the movie, even though he calls it "stupid", and also says (echoing a couple of the other reviews I have read) that the battle scenes are very confusingly staged. Not well done.

But I do like how he ends his review:

And then there's Clive Owen, rising above it all. Aloof yet watchful, the actor cultivates an inner stillness that is perfect for faintly ironic brooders. He neither distances himself from this risible material nor pulls out the stops and opens himself to ridicule. His King Arthur tells us little about Arthur, but much about protecting one's flank. The mark of a box-office king?

Quite a compliment. Clive Owen's been around for a long time, doing consistently good work. It's nice to see it acknowledged.

Posted by sheila