X
- 2019
- PG
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 2 h
- 2019
- PG
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 2 h
Summary Alex (Ashbourne Serkis) thinks he’s just another nobody, until he stumbles upon the mythical Sword in the Stone, Excalibur. Now, he must unite his friends and enemies into a band of knights and, together with the legendary wizard Merlin (Patrick Stewart), take on the wicked enchantress Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson). With the future at stake...
Directed By: Joe Cornish
Written By: Joe Cornish
- 2019
- PG
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 2 h
- 2019
- PG
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 2 h
The Kid Who Would Be King
66
6.1
Where to Watch
Summary Alex (Ashbourne Serkis) thinks he’s just another nobody, until he stumbles upon the mythical Sword in the Stone, Excalibur. Now, he must unite his friends and enemies into a band of knights and, together with the legendary wizard Merlin (Patrick Stewart), take on the wicked enchantress Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson). With the future at stake...
Directed By: Joe Cornish
Written By: Joe Cornish
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 35 Critic Reviews
66
74% Positive
26 Reviews
26 Reviews
23% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 35 Critic Reviews
66
74% Positive
26 Reviews
26 Reviews
23% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
The Kid Who Would Be King blows the dust off an old tale, and makes it invigorating and inspiring for viewers who will be forming their own round tables of world-changers for generations to come.
Joe Cornish has pulled off a fantastic feat- a children’s fantasy adventure that balances the drama, action, and humor perfectly and will keep an audience of any age entertained through its entire runtime.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 71 User Ratings
6.1
45% Positive
32 Ratings
32 Ratings
42% Mixed
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
13% Negative
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 71 User Ratings
6.1
45% Positive
32 Ratings
32 Ratings
42% Mixed
30 Ratings
30 Ratings
13% Negative
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
This is my favorite King Arthur movie, one of my of favorite movies of 2019, and one of my favorite movies of all time. The acting was excellent especially Angus Imrie, Louis Serkis, Rhianna Doris, Tom Taylor, Dean Chaumoo, Denise Gough, Patrick Stewart, and Rebecca Ferguson. The writing and story were outstanding. The visual effects were terrific. The makeup and hairstyling was superb especially on Rebecca Ferguson. The costumes were awesome especially on Rebecca Ferguson and all of the armor. Overall a great movie.
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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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The Kid Who Would Be King is a reliable family film, and Cornish polishes old tropes with fresh eyes and a sense of clever imagination.
The film builds to an anarchic set piece, in which a school full of rambunctious children defend the world from evil while the adults literally disappear off the face of the earth. It’s the closest thing Cornish comes to a real-life prescription for what ails us, and it goes down pretty well.
Superficiality is The Kid Who Would Be King’s greatest weakness. It skims along the surface, always taking the obvious path, never courting interesting possibilities, and trumpeting trite messages about friendship, truth, and belief in self.
With its retro-video-game score and “Goonies”-style gang of misfit characters, the movie plays like a throwback to Spielberg-produced adventure films of the ’80s. And yet, the premise feels wobbly at best.
The young actors are adequate, but they’re not intrinsically interesting, so their interior movements hold no fascination. With that in mind, The Kid Who Would Be King should have been an hour long, but an extra 20 minutes, just to stretch it to feature length, would have been forgivable. But a full 120 minutes for this was just borderline crazy.
This is the long-awaited (for me) follow-up to Joe Cornish’s directorial debut, the cult-classic sci-fi/horror British comedy, Attack the Block, which I really love and not enough people have seen. It was a big flop when it came out, but it’s growing more and more of a following with time. Check it out, it has John Boyega, Nick Frost and Jodie Whittaker. It’s good. Now, The Kid Who Would Be King isn’t as subversive or original as Attack the Block. That movie was a social commentary about inner-city communities. The Kid Who Would Be King is a kids movie, inspired by the Arthurian legends. It’s a damn good kids movie though, and probably the best King Arthur movie since Excalibur. It’s about a kid who finds Excalibur and discovers that he is of a royal bloodline, destined to defeat Morgana once and for all. The child acting is excellent. It’s like Stranger Things, there are so many talented young performers here that I hope go places! The story is fairly simple, but engaging and full of twists. This is going to sound kind of weird, but this movie, to me, feels like what the Star Wars sequel trilogy should’ve been, or at least what it seemed to be building up to until Rise of Skywalker came in and ruined everything. I can’t really go into detail without giving things away, but you’ll see what I mean if you see the movie. The lead character is very similar to Rey. The effects and action are solid too, and it’s very funny! Overall, this is a super solid and fun movie that the whole family can enjoy. I’m super bummed that this was a box office flop too. Come on, Hollywood! Give this guy a Marvel movie or something! He’s such a talented filmmaker! Give him a movie that will actually make money to get his name out! Anyway, it’s good. Check it out.
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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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Was excited to finally get a chance to see this film, since I didn't get a chance to see it in theaters. It has a great premise with good acting from the leads, Patrick Steward is of course incredible but its poorly paced and the entire third act is hard to take seriously when its kids going to battle against demons
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Production Company
Big Talk Productions,
TSG Entertainment,
Twentieth Century Fox,
Working Title Films
Release Date Jan 25, 2019
Duration 2 h
Rating PG
Tagline Evil Gets Schooled
Awards
National Film Awards, UK
• 2 Nominations
Heartland Film
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Young Entertainer Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
