- Joe Cornish's The Kid Who Would be King is a rare modern children's film in that it is neither part of a multipart series nor a sly marketing scheme for cheap plastic toys. It's not even directly based on a book, although the Arthurian legend and The Once and Future King both loom large in the background. Instead, it is a straightforward hero's tale that never aspires to be anything other than a thoughtfully updated retelling of the King Arthur, Merlin, and Knights of the Round Table stories. There's not necessarily much material here for adults to appreciate, but it's difficult to imagine finding a more sincerely innocent and inoffensive film for kids on this side of the Hundred Acre Wood.
- Subbing in for King Arthur is a young boy named Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis), who stands up to school bullies (Tom Taylor, Rhianna Dorris) in order to protect his loyal friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo). Naturally, he finds a sword in a stone (in a construction quarry) and is soon after contacted by the wizard Merlin (Angus Imrie), who transforms himself into an owl (or Patrick Stewart when he wants to be more convincing). As expected, the hero faces off against the dark forces of Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), most of which look like knockoff Nazgul from The Lord of the Rings movies. Despite its earlier historical antecedents, this film's visuals are clearly a legacy of the Peter Jackson movies, and it's probably telling that the lead actor's father once slinked around onscreen, pining for his precious ring.
- Viewers searching for hidden meanings might notice the film's inadvertently funny newspaper headlines proclaiming war, gloom, and misery and immediately think of the impending Brexit crisis, but The Kid Who Would be King really does attempt to traffic in more universal themes than all that. Aside from its employment of (precisely halfway decent) CGI and its pleasantly diverse cast of child actors, this is very much a film out of time that could have emerged from any of the last four decades. Its big battles and diabolical villains are never as convincing as the friendship between Alex and Bedders, which even they describe as being akin to that of Frodo and Sam. Imrie also stands out as Merlin, even if Patrick Stewart is doing the respectable version of phoning it in. The Cornish countryside is beautiful, even if it is filmed in much the same way as, you guessed it, New Zealand in Lord of the Rings.
