King Arthur the movie, was not intended to closely resemble the British legend. I understand that. The problem is, King Arthur did resemble a shitty, poorly-written movie. The following are some of the things absent from the movie that should probably be included in a movie based on a timeless legend.
-good acting
-events that make sense
-realistic battle scenes
-believable characters
-some resemblence to the legend more than just giving characters the names of the legendary figures
-plausible conclusion
The only good thing about this movie was that in the final battle scene, Keira Knightley's boobs were hanging out. Of course it doesn't make sense that a woman would even be in the battle, much less get dressed like a whore before going into battle, but the boobs were a nice distraction from the shitty battle scene.
My first problem with the movie is illustrated above. Arthur throughout the movie expresses his desire to return to his home in Rome, as all the knights are allowed to regain their freedom and return to their homes at the end of their fifteen year service. Everybody talks all movie long about how all they want is the freedom to return to their homelands and get off the God-forsaken British Isles. Arthur also talks at length of his hatred for the Britons and their leader, Merlin, who was responsible for the death of his mother when the Britons looted his village as a child. All of a sudden, when the knights are granted their freedom and free passage throughout the Roman Empire, they all decide they would rather stay on the British Isles, which they've suddenly stopped bitching about, and help the Britons, whom they now apparently like, defend the British Isles against invading Saxons. There is no explanation whatsoever for everyone's change of heart or why the Britons want the help of a Roman captain and his men anyway when they all supposedly hate each other. Then after they save the Britons they all unanimously decide to remain with Arthur, who is pronounced king of the Britons. Not only did the Britons want Arthur, a Roman and therefore an enemy, to help them with the Saxon problem, they decide to let him be their king, which is interesting because they had never had a king before, they just suddenly wanted him to be their king. And all his men suddenly forgot how much they hated the British Isles and wanted to return home, and that is never explained either.
The battle scenes in this movie were the most unrealistic part of all. One battle scene pits Arthur and his seven friends against two hundred Saxons on top of a frozen lake. One knight uses his axe to chop a hole in the ice, and the entire Saxon army falls to their icy death. The ice had just held up for all the villagers, as well as their horses and carriages, but a few swings of an axe broke the entire layer of ice apart. The final battle scene is ever more disturbing. One of Arthur's knights, who looks disturbingly like Prince, gets a crossbow arrow in his chest through his armor. Naturally he has just enough strength left in him to throw his broadsword about fifty yards with perfect aim to hit the archer in the chest, killing him instantly. He then falls over dead. The leader of the Saxons has Arthur in the final one-on-one showdown everyone in the world knew was coming, and the end couldn't have been more predictable. Arthur is knocked on the ground and appears to have lost, so naturally the Saxon leader pauses for dramatic effect before dealing the death blow. Ten minutes later when the Saxon finally decides to finish Arthur off, Arthur suddenly brings his sword up and cuts down the Saxon leader. Like anyone didn't see that one coming.
Finally the fact that Keira Knightley's character is so unbelievable completely negates getting a peek of her boobs in the final battle scene. When she is rescued by Arthur, rather than be a good damsel in distress and have sex with him like she should, she decides to bitch incessantly about how cruel the Romans are and that he should be nicer to the Britons. By the way, that night she introduces Arthur to Merlin, whom Arthur has sworn to kill, and they naturally kiss and make up. It's funny because she was taken prisoner in the first place because she couldn't overcome a few guards, but amazingly with Arthur at her side she transforms into this super-warrior who kills Saxons left and right. She's the only woman in any of the battles and she fights better than the Saxons who live their entire lives learning to fight and kill. Maybe they were just distracted by her boobs. I was. By the way, I was very disappointed with the one sex scene in the movie. Predictably she and Arthur kissed and made up after she bitched at him nonstop but then decided he was okay after all. The problem was that in the sex scene you couldn't see anything. It was worse than watching a sex scene in an HBO porn. They really blew it because seeing Keira Knightley naked was the only thing that could have saved this movie.
people were pissed off because they only saw this hoping to see Keira Knightley get naked