The Kid Who Would Be King (Review)
Kneel Before The Kid Who Would Be King
The Kid Who Would Be King is a prime example of why not all great movies are good. Thanks to the watchful eye of director-writer Joe Cornish, the film manages to avoid every pitfall that could have befallen a kid-friendly modernization of the Arthurian Legend. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much when I sat down to watch this movie because it certainly isn’t geared toward a 30-something-year-old with a soft spot for movies like John Wick. However, even I found a few things enjoyable about this quirky family movie with plenty of swords, sorcery, and knights.
For those of you unfamiliar with the legend of King Arthur, he was kinda the fictional founder of Britain. A warrior king who turned his enemies to allies and united the island to stand against all threats, foreign and domestic. More importantly, he was a guy who (essentially) was a pretty just and righteous dude when it came to being a ruler. However, he also died hundreds of years ago, so his mantle now falls to a teenager named Alex, played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis who manages to pull the mythical sword Excalibur from a stone… In a construction site. Sure, it might sound like it’s off to a rocky start, but bear with The Kid Who Would Be King, because by now, Cornish has proven he knows where he’s going with things like this.
The film follows the once and future kid king as he sets out to try to prevent the end of, well, at least Britain, if not the world. However, there doesn’t seem like there’s much an 11-year-old can do in the face of immortal evil. At least not on his own. Because of this, Cornish gives young Alex guidance in the form of Merlin (played as in disguise by Angus Imrie and as an old man by Patrick Stewart) and some of his very own knights (Dean Chaumoo, Tom Taylor, and Rhianna Dorris). Here is where The Kid Who Would Be King makes it’s money though because Cornish invests wholeheartedly not in the story, but in the characters and their relationships throughout the film.
What surprised me the most about The Kid Who Would Be King, is that the film is very careful when it comes to representation without feeling like it’s pandering. Of course, Alex and “Lancelot” (Taylor) are white kids with all the privilege that comes with it. However, the rest of his team is rounded out by the likes of Chaumoo and Dorris, who are Wester-Asian and Black, without feeling any need to justify them being part of the team, which is something I wholeheartedly found myself getting behind. The world has started to move a lot faster in the right direction thanks to films like Black Panther and the #Metoo movement, and Hollywood’s response, while slow, has been led me to be surprisingly optimistic for the future. Chaumoo and Dorris’ characters might not be the primary leads, but both of them are essential for the film to take place and represent minorities often ignored in England, so their inclusion in what is essentially a children’s film went a long way in opening my heart to The Kid Who Would Be King.
The Kid Who Would Be King is a fanciful adventure that slowly managed to win even an old cynical bastard like me over. I don’t have kids of my own to drag along with me to movies like this. But I’ve had a chance to sit through more than enough by now to know that it can’t be easy having little ones to take with you to a theater. The Kid Who Would Be King is a film that at face value is about defeating the forces of evil, but beneath it all the film serves as an excuse to introduce children to the code of chivalry that all Arthurian knights were forced to live by, which includes gems like, don’t lie, don’t be a dick, and respect your elders. More importantly, though it reminds children that while they might feel helpless now in the doom and gloom that makes up the world, they will one day be the people in power and have battles of their own to fight. This is a big deal because kids have to know that if they see something injustice, they need to fight it.
Sure, there are plenty of problems with The Kid Who Would Be King, but there are none that manage to break it. Instead, the film manages to be one of the better family-friendly films I’ve seen recently. In fact, it’s probably the best one since Marry Poppins Returns. It’s a movie that shows what a keen grasp of storytelling Joe Cornish has, and manages to move at the same pace a well-written children’s book. The Kid Who Would Be King doesn’t have a lot of depth to it, but it’s a movie that I can seriously recommend to families out there who just want to see something fun and engaging in a month not known for “great” movies. It’s a fanciful adventure film that proves to be well worth the price of admission.
