The Kid Who Would Be King
Starring: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Rebecca Ferguson, Patrick Stewart, Denise Gough, Dean Chaumoo, Tom Taylor
Director: Joe Cornish
The Kid Who Would be King is filled with unexpected fun and delights. It is timely and timeless, and has brains to match its heart. It stands amongst the best live action kids movies I’ve seen in many years.
Its archetypal story, the Hero’s Journey, is one that will be instantly familiar, and it is aware of its structural familiarity. Young Alexander (played by Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Andy’s son), mentions Luke Skywalker and other heroes when regaling his best friend, Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) about the possibilities of the sword he has discovered. The story doesn’t feel tired, though, because of what care director Joe Cornish takes to firmly place the story in our world.
This is Joe Cornish’s second feature directorial outing, his first being 2011’s Attack the Block. While I am sadly ignorant of Block, which I have heard is excellent, I have always been a fan of Arthurian legend, and the film’s portrayal of it does not disappoint. Literature teachers looking to reward students for a hard semester’s work might find a visit to the theater for The Kid Who Would Be King a fun field trip.
The movie regards Arthurian legend in the best of ways–as an old, tried and true story, and also as something that belongs to those who read it, something to be believed in and therefore improved upon. The titular kid, Alexander, is worthy to pull the sword from the stone, but the events he sets into motion create a new and exciting story that builds upon what we all know about the story of King Arthur. The movie has a similar message to The Last Jedi, that heroism is not about bloodlines or privileges, but rather the heart of the individual, whomever they may be.
Most of the roles–Lancelot, Kay, Arthur, and Beldevere, are reincarnations more than descendants of the characters of legend, save for the villain, Morgana (a mostly CGI and root-restrained Rebecca Ferguson), and Merlin (Angus Imrie), who appears from the past in a nod to The Terminator, including but not limited to a scene where he commandeers a civilian’s clothes. Much praise has been given to Imrie's bright-eyed and committed performance, and rightly so. The scenes involving young Merlin have the same kind of magical charm and humor as the first couple of Harry Potter movies. Merlin, appearing in the guise of a teenage boy, is not immediately received warmly by his new school, and it’s equally funny not only to see Alexander and Bedders use this as a chance to move up from the bottom of the school bullying pecking order, but also how little Merlin cares about popularity or his own pride. Merlin, unmasking as an older man (Patrick Stewart), observes that there is a wise old person in all children, and a foolish child in all old people.
This point is made again and again throughout the movie, and though it never directly mentions Brexit and Trump, it is clear that it is a movie meant to steel children for the horrors of the real world. At the beginning of the movie, Alexander and Bedders are heavily bullied, but it is clear that one of his greatest acts of heroism is to turn his bullies into friends. Perhaps the central illusion that greed puts us under is that our tribe is “us,” and their tribe is “them,” when in fact if we are living and breathing, we are all we.
Cornish does not hold back on the horrors of the fictional world, as Arthur and friends are regularly set upon by the wraithlike skeletal minions of Morgana. The first encounter with one takes place in Alexander’s house, and its nightmarish quality is not, I don’t think, too scary for younger audience members, but it may be right on the edge. I was personally thankful for this level of terror, as it gave Alexander’s quest a tangible level of stakes, even as the film takes time to show that sometimes our personal demons are not skeletons from the earth, but struggles in our mind.
This is a lovely film, and it’s an absolute shame that it’s bombing at the box office. Whether you have a wise young child of your own, or you yourself are an old fool at heart, you’ll be moved and entertained. There are many more surprises the movie has to offer, but it’s so much fun that I don’t want to spoil any of them.
A