Active Users:250 Time:23/04/2024 11:58:31 AM
"The King" (Netflix ) feels like the Game of Thrones people tried to adapt "Henry V" but PG-13 - Edit 1

Before modification by Cannoli at 07/11/2019 05:01:11 AM

And it makes Shakespeare's Henry IV pt 1 & Henry V look like documentaries by comparison. Ben Mendelson (General Krennic & the main Skrull) is Henry IV for, like, a minute. Joel Edgerton is John Falstaff, but he's not the scumbag of Shakespearean fame, instead of "I know thee not, old man," it's "Won't you come with me for one last campaign? I really need someone I can trust as I invade France." Timothy Chalamet is the titular King, Henry V, the kid who played Tommen Baratheon is the brother who died at Agincourt, except he doesn't in this. Robert Pattinson is the Dauphin of France and that creepy-eyes guy from the last two Mission Impossible movies is Henry's right hand man and the guy who exposes the Southampton plot. Henry is an anachronistically idealized ruler, whose youthful slacking was actually a principled refusal to have anything to do with his horrible father's tyranny and war-mongering. He only fights at Shrewsbury to prevent his unready younger brother from having to bear the burden of a military command, and it's not so much the Battle of Shrewsbury as the Single Combat of Shrewsbury, between Prince Hal and Hotspur.

It's very weird and moody and less historically factual than "Braveheart" or "The Outlaw King". But it might be a decent "kid everyone doubts shows them who's boss" story if you have zero knowledge of early 15th century English history or Shakespeare.


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