The King (2019)

The King is directed terribly. David Michôd, as ever, seems to have no sense of urgency or stakes. The whole movie is ponderous, as if everything is very, very important, but the direction never seems to communicate that importance, only assume it. There is, accordingly, a great deal of slow-motion photography and an overburdened but beautiful score by Nicholas Britell.

This is a shame because everyone is doing very good work here, especially the armorer, the costumer, Joel Edgerton, the production designer, and every other actor. I think Timothée Chalamet is miscast slightly, but he is still doing good work. Edgerton, who co-wrote the screenplay by telescoping Shakespeare's 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV and focusing on a much adjusted version of Henry V, has given himself all the best lines and has turned Sir John Falstaff into a wise old sage. That is sort of delightful. There's even a gorgeous reference to a speech in Hamlet in The King's version of the St. Crispin's day speech from Henry V. But none of this can save this movie from what Michôd does to it.

Oh and the fights! I should say something about the fights. My housemate, who is a director and fight choreographer, watched the movie with me, and while we were watching I offhandedly said This looks like a fight from a Marvel movie. It makes no sense in the context of the medieval period we are watching. Turns out, the fights were choreographed by a guy who works on the Marvel stuff. Zzzzzz. Stop with all the punching! It's so boring. They're wearing armor, for fuck's sake!