THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

For some thirty years now I've seen numerous films in which some denizen of Arthurian Britain invades the modern world, either literally traveling in time or being reincarnated in some contemporaneous body. Most of them are dogs like the 1999 ARTHUR'S QUEST, whose creators are overly impressed with their banal conceptions. THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING, a British production written and directed by Joe (ADVENTURES OF TINTIN) Cornish is a fairly simplified take on the Arthurian mythos, but it's consistently engaging.

First, the prologue relates a D&D version of the conflict between Arthur and his half-sister Morgana. The film skirts the circumstances of Arthur's conception and asserts that after Young Arthur pulls Excalibur from the stone with the help of Merlin, he manages to unite many warring tribes of England. Envious Morgana turns to dark magic and tries to overthrow Camelot, and the story of Arthur ends with Merlin using his magic to imprison the serpentine form of Morgana in some other dimension.

Fast forward to the present. Alex (Louis Ashborne Serkis) is a short middle-school kid who pals around with his pudgy mate Bedders as they try to avoid being targeted by school bullies Lance and Kaye (the latter a rarely seen girl bully). Alex lives alone with his mother, and nothing is said of his father for half the film. By accident Alex stumbles across an ancient sword whose markings suggest Excalibur, according to an old book left to Alex by his absent father. But the unearthing of Excalibur awakens Morgana, and now she has power enough to send demon minions to obtain the sword.

A new boy, calling himself Mertin, enters the middle school, and soon enough he calls upon Alex and Bedders, telling them that he is actually Merlin traveling in time and Alex is the descendant of Arthur.  (I assume Bedders descends from Sir Bedivere but I don't believe it's stated.)  Alex and Bedders only believe this story after Merlin saves Alex from one of the demons. (The effort costs him energy, though, and Young Merlin briefly transforms into Old Patrick Stewart.) The youngsters must then find some way to combat Morgana-- and their best chance seems to be to bring Lance and Kaye into the fold, the way ancient Arthur reconciled warring kings. But can two bullies, implicitly named for archaic figures inimical to the archaic King of Britain, be trusted?

KID does set itself aside from the dozens of films in which bully-characters are just used as convenient targets for vengeance, since in this case Alex must actually manage to convert them to the cause of a noble mission. This is decent melodrama, but nothing exceptional. The script goes awry by introducing the story of the absent father, because it never becomes important to the story, not even in terms of straining Alex's relationship with his mother. The final confrontation with Morgana puts across the action with adequate FX, though the best scene in the film involves Alex knighting the whole student body of his school to battle the demons. (Naturally no kids are harmed during this demon invasion.)

I thought Serkis was a bit too nebbish-y to make a juvenile Arthur, and his line-readings are rather mechanical. Patrick Stewart isn't in the film long enough to make any impression, so I don't know why the producers bothered to hire him. Angus Imrie provides the best performance as Quirky Young Merlin, who excels in instructing the other kids in the Chivalric Code.