Sunday, November 03, 2019

Movie review - "The King" (2019) **1/2

Adapted from the Prince Hal cycle of plays by Shakespeare though Game of Thrones feels like more of an influence - the dialogue, the look of the movie, the battle sequences, all the gloom and violence.

It revamps the plays which is fine but I don't think what they replaced it with is more interesting than what they cut out. Hal starts off a  bit irresponsible but 20 minutes in he's killed Hotspur in hand to hand combat so basically he's a bad ass. Falstaff is a bad ass too - no coward.

No one feels like a real human being everyone feels like they're acting in a movie - or, more accurately, Game of Thrones. People talk tough. There's bursts of violence to keep you awake. 

It looks stunning - costumes, production design. The actors are all fine. I like how the characters switched from English to French and back. Lots of good stuff. But I felt it didn't have much underpinning it. Everyone was too tough.

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