THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING Review

The Kid Who Would be King takes the Arthurian legend, drops it into modern day Britain, and puts a Stranger Things twist on it in the hopes of capturing some of the magic of those live-action adventure flicks for kids that were more prominent in the early to mid-nineties. The Kid Who Would Be King is immediately appealing and don't get me wrong, has its charms, but as one sits and experiences the film it can't help but become evident that this charm largely is due to the fact audiences simply don't see this type of movie as often anymore. Were we still to get a handful of these kinds of movies every year odds are The Kid Who Would Be King would fall somewhere in the bottom half of the barrel, but given the rarity of its genre and style of its execution it can't help but to feel a little more special. Writer/director Joe Cornish, who is largely known for directing 2011's Attack the Black and introducing the world to a nineteen-year-old John Boyega, but who is also a frequent collaborator of Edgar Wright's and who has worked on screenplays for the filmmaker including Ant-Man and Hot Fuzz, has decided to place his own twist on this traditional hero's journey of a story that we've seen numerous versions and interpretations of since the beginning of cinema. Unfortunately, Cornish's twist on the material isn't exactly fresh or unique in any form that inspires something of a revitalized hope in this live-action children's genre which is rather disappointing given the way in which his previous film took certain tropes of the alien invasion film and spiced them up with a unique location and wicked sense of humor; it was fun because it featured conventional story beats upended by unconventional protagonists whereas The Kid Who Would Be King, which essentially has all of the same elements minus the R-rating, displays half the energy and even less of the creativity that seemed to surge through Attack the Block's veins. Cornish displays fits and starts of both as there is a certain energy to moments and flashes of innate creativity in others, but overall the film feels patched together and somewhat choppy-as if Cornish is never able to fall naturally into the groove he wants this story to find and thus the final product defaulting to this collection of overused themes and narrative devices that feels flat and rather bland. Cornish ultimately doesn't even attempt much of a twist on these beats, but more plays to the strength of them which-thankfully-is more than enough to keep the target audience entertained if not completely entranced.

First Trailer for THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING Starring Rebecca Ferguson

Writer/director Joe Cornish returns to the big screen next year with his first feature since 2011's Attack the Block (which, if you haven't seen it, see it now) with The Kid Who Would Be King about a band of kids who embark on an epic quest to thwart a medieval menace. The film was originally scheduled to open this September, but obviously that didn't work out. If this first look at the film is any indication though, it seems to have had nothing to do with the quality of the product, but more the timing of it all. What is interesting about this is that studios seem to be beginning to remember there is an entire market out there of kids between the ages of nine and fifteen who don't really care to be relegated to only animated films (as good as the computer generated images may be) and shouldn't be operating on a steady diet of only comic book movies. Or, as Scott Mendelson so wisely phrased it, "over the last 15 years, the PG-13, the four-quadrant global blockbuster has supplanted the adult melodrama and the kid-targeted fantasy as the go-to pick for all demographics." And so, while The Kid Who Would Be King was originally set to open on the same weekend as Eli Roth's The House with a Clock in Its Walls I'm happy to have to wait a few more months so see Cornish's long-awaited follow-up so as to have it potentially reach a bigger audience than see it be buried under a higher-profile film in the same genre fishing for the same audience. The Kid Who Would Be King looks like the kind of movie that thrived in that time we're all nostalgic for now and if Cornish, who wrote and  directed this, is able to create a new adventure film based on the template of King Arthur and the knights of the round table with plenty a creative twists for the current generation to become nostalgic for in another twenty-five years, well then, all the more power to him. Given the current cinematic climate, all this generation will have to be nostalgic for are less than stellar reboots of what the previous generation was nostalgic for anyway. Well, those and Marvel movies. This is all to say the first trailer for the film looks like an ad for a movie filled with wonder and that is sure to be a ton of fun. Here's hoping it was worth the wait, Joe. The Kid Who Would Be King stars Rebecca Ferguson, Patrick Stewart, Tom Taylor, Ashbourne Serkis, Rhianna Dorris, Dean Chaumoo, Denise Gough, Angus Imrie, and opens stateside on March 1st, 2019.

THE DARK TOWER Review

It seems like there have been rumblings of a Dark Tower adaptation for as long as my memory will allow me to recall, but never did it actually seem as if a feature film version of the material would make its way to the big screen. Well, here we are, the summer movie season of 2017 winding down and the feature film version of what is said to be Stephen King's magnum opus of sorts, his most expansive series to date which now consists of eight novels, 4,250 pages, and introduces concepts and characters from King's many other works that come into play as the series progresses has arrived. The first volume in the The Dark Tower series, subtitled The Gunslinger, was published in 1982 and comprised itself of five short stories that had been published between 1978 and 1981 to which those stories have now been condensed down into a 95-minute, PG-13 would-be blockbuster that never takes off in the way it would seem it was always destined to. Rather, director Nikolaj Arcel's (A Royal Affair) tight, but exposition-heavy film suggests there is much mythology left to be explored, but for one reason or another it was decided the Cliff Notes version was the best way to go out of the gate so as to no doubt make the movie on the cheap and hopefully as accessible for the uninitiated as it would be pleasing to the fans who've been waiting on it for twenty-five years. Sure, the film makes sense in the way that point A leads to point B which inevitably leads to a CGI heavy point C, but never do we feel compelled by anything that's going on, invested in any of the characters taking part, nor-as one of those uninitiated members in the audience-do we care to see the series continue which one might think would have been the key to Sony finally ponying up and making a Dark Tower movie in a current world of shared cinematic universes. Truthfully though, it kind of fails to emphasize this factor at all. In many ways one wants to commend the studio for telling a more contained story rather than baiting viewers with tease after tease so that they have to come back for a sequel to see what they really wanted to see the first time around, but at the same time fans also want to see what they imagined while reading the source material come to life in a good movie and whether or not The Dark Tower is that is what's up for debate. The Dark Tower is not necessarily a bad movie, but it's not very good either. It's very much a middle of the road affair; not bad enough to hate, but not good enough to remember. Let's put it this way: the best thing you can say about The Dark Tower is that it's competent and the worst thing you can say is that it's uninspired.

First Trailer for THE DARK TOWER

Man, I really need to read more Stephen King. Given the upcoming IT re-make and the fact I've never seen the original miniseries (don't kill me) I feel like I have a lot of King territory to cover. All of that said, I have no idea what The Dark Tower is about or what all the hype is concerning, but I'm certainly interested. That said, this trailer is the first thing I've seen around the material and while I'm not sure I exactly understand why the intrigue is seemingly so great I am naturally interested to find out about this world, these characters, and the story that has captured the imagination of so many of King's readers. Hell, I have three months I may even try to knock out the source material beforehand if I have the time. So, how does this trailer look from the perspective of someone who has no attachment to said source material? Well, it looks fine. It definitely looks like a big-budget summer movie and the fact it gives Idris Elba a marquee role in a potential blockbuster franchise as well as potentially giving Matthew McConaughey one of his more interesting roles in a few years is worth the investment alone. Apparently there are eight novels in King's series and I suspect Sony is hoping this first film is a big enough hit that they might continue to make films and build a franchise around them especially given the studio is now sharing its most profitable property with Marvel and hasn't exactly found any other solid ground in the past few years. With Bond up for grabs this would seemingly only make The Dark Tower series more vital and a fairly large gamble for the studio. Still, what is different about this offering is the fact it will likely be an R-rated summer offering in the midst of PG-13 action adventures and animated blockbusters. The fact it does come from King also leads me to believe there will be a fair amount of horror involved-setting the expansive landscape that features the Gunslinger and the Man in Black apart even further. Here's to hoping filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel (A Royal Affair) can use everything working for him to his advantage. The Dark Tower also stars Tom Taylor, Katheryn Winnick, Abbey Lee, Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Haysbert, Fran Kranz, and opens on August 4th, 2017.