It starts with some scene setting: Uther Pendragon killing Mordred, wizard Vortigern killing Uther, baby Arthur put in a boat and sent down the Thames. He is rescued by some loose women who take him in and raise him. So we have Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) growing up on the streets, a street-wise king-to-be.
When some Vikings rough up one of the women, Arthur and his crew force them to pay up. But he finds out that King Vortigern (Jude Law) is protecting the Vikings, and his secret police grab him and take him to Camelot castle. There, along with every other young Englishman who isn't nailed down, he is forced to attempt to remove a sword from a stone. He succeeds, but passes out from the magic power. That puts him in Vortigern's power.
Meanwhile, a tomboy girl wizard called Mage (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) gets in touch with Arthur's buddy Djimon Hansou, and they rescue Arthur. So, reluctantly, with the help of his ragtag band of friends, he takes on the Vikings and the king.
This is not your regular King Arthur story. For one thing, it's all prelude. They just get started on the Round Table at the very end. Merlin is in the movie for a second in a flashback, but that's it. His place is taken by Mage, with a little Nimue folded in. There is no Lancelot, no Guinevere. Aside from Hansou, one of Arthur's buddies is Tom Wu, called Kung Fu George. And Excalibur is totally magic - can cut through magic fire or blast a roomful of warriors.
I can accept all that, even based on the now tired trope of the guy you thought of as a noble hero being raised as a street tough. But Ritchie didn't seem to have his heart in this - or maybe put too much heart and not enough judgement into it. There are some good fights, but nothing outstanding. The anachronisms and departures from canon are designed to add some oddball fun, but fail to do so. Plus, it seems he was saving the best stuff for the sequels, which, sadly (?) will never get made.
Skip it, and watch Excalibur again.
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