In the opening sequence of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, we are presented with a castle under attack from demon elephants the size of large buildings swinging wrecking balls with their trunks and carrying entire armies on their backs. We learn that Mordred is not Arthur’s bastard son. He is, instead, the leader of the forces besieging King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana). When things go bad for Uther (sorry, I guess I spoiled the first 5 minutes), young Arthur is put on a boat and sent downriver, where he is found by a group of prostitutes and raised in a bordello in the city of Londinium. In the montage of Arthur growing to manhood, we learn that he is trained to fight in a Chinese dojo run by Kung-Fu George (Tom Wu). I didn’t make that up.
It became clear very quickly that this movie had nothing whatsoever to do with Arthurian legend, nor did it give two figs about historical plausibility, let alone accuracy. This movie was about some dude who happened to be named Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) running around in an alternate universe with a sword that happened to be named Excalibur. Within 10 minutes, I realized I was watching a cheesy 80s era sword and sorcery movie with a high budget and a great sound track. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)