Will someone please do a GOOD Athurian legend film?

Rating: 2/10 (11 April 2008)

Oh dear. Why hasn't there been a good Merlin/Arthur film since John Boorman's Excalibur? This is the latest in a long line of shockers. Excalibur was good because it stuck to fantasy. This tried to tie history and fantasy, and ends up pleasing no-one. Anyone who knows anything about the late Western Empire will get wound up by the factual inaccuracies (Romans were Christian, emperors didn't live in Rome, they lived in Ravenna, etc. etc.), and it also fails to justice to Arthurian legend at the same time. As others have pointed out, tying in Rome to Arthur has been done (very) successfully in literature, but this just irritates. The casting was pretty woeful too, and the whole female Indian assassin thing just seemed to be shoehorned in (Producer fancied the actress? Can't think of any good script reason). There's got to be a director out there who can do a good Arthur film, and who knows, one who can do a good fall of the Roman Empire story; it IS after all an interesting era, and deserves better than this.