Film
Growing up in a rough neighbourhood, due to losing his birthright as part of royal lineage, Arthur (Charlie Hunnam – Crimson Peak, Pacific Rim) has life hard. On one hand, he learns many valuable skills and life lesson, yet on the other he is relegated to the back alleys of the city, with the company of those who are seen as outcasts.
This now look at the legend of old is an average one, and would likely have a low rewatch value for most viewers for this reason. Most likely to have its fans, the film doesn’t hold too much on subsequent viewings with a straight forward story, and little in the line of intricate plot details that one might miss on any initial viewing.
Read the full SAMDB review of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
Disc
Overall, the disc is of an average technical quality. There is some video colour bleed, but not much. Audio is good. Unfortunately, the main feature itself is just average, and there is just one extra feature.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is available now, to purchase on disc, in South Africa.
Video
Video is encoded at a decent average bitrate, however there are areas where colour bleed is visible. Most notably in scenes with finer detail, or during the opening titles where the viewer would need to read on-screen text that sets the scene for the film.
There are no compression artefacts visible on-screen though, and the colour bleed isn’t so bad as to detract from the film.
Viewers with the relevant hardware or software could scale up to a larger or higher resolution screen, should they wish.
Audio
Audio is presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, and encoded at a high average bitrate. Dialogue is clear via the centre channel. There is fair use of the surround channels, serving to expand the on-screen world, and further draw the viewer into the story.
Navigation
Navigation is a simple template, found on many DVDs, but is by far better than the cryptic symbols that viewers are too often forced to guess at. There are large buttons, with text labels. A static menu background, with no accompanying music.
While the navigation on most DVDs from Next Entertainment is something seriously lacking in logic and design, this disc chooses to start the film immediately once you put the disc into a player.
There are menu options for play, which will start the main feature.
Scene selections takes you to two sub-menus, each with six static, large, colour thumbnails, for a total of twelve chapters. While these are numbered, they are not labelled, so an amount of guesswork would be needed to navigate to a specific part in the story.
Languages leads to a sub-menu with a text list of audio languages, and subtitle choices.
And the bonus feature button leads to a sub-menu listing the only extra feature on the disc.
Bonus Features
Arthur With Swagger – A short featurette combining some interviews with the cast and crew, talking about Charlie Hunnam, and some footage showing the mischief that goes on between takes, and before shooting starts.
While not imparting much knowledge for aspiring filmmakers, the video does show the camaraderie that took place on set, amidst the sometimes harsh shooting conditions.