Arthur The King Review - Less Adventure, More Drama

Arthur The King Review: Simon Cellan Jones's adventure drama stars Mark Wahlberg in the lead role, along with a dog. It's 2024, and we are still stuck with the same Ideas of human emotions towards pets and vice versa, but is it really enough to make an engrossing cinematic feature? Can it hold audiences for 1 and a half hours? It's difficult to answer that question because it depends on what kind of writing and direction the film gets. Arthur The King tries too hard but doesn't emerge anywhere above an average flick that can only be watched for the last 20 minutes that have heart and brain in the right place. Rest; it's very low on adventure, which hurts the pace and excitement factor.

There is a group of mountain climbers: Michael (Mark Wahlberg), Olivia (Nathalie Emmanuel), and Chik (Ali Suliman), venturing into some kind of adventurous competition in the mountains. A stray dog (Arthur) joins them during this expedition and becomes attached to the head of the team. The dog saves the entire team in the night with his brilliant sense of sensing dangers. The team takes him together, but at a certain point, they have to leave him behind. The dog won't listen, though. He follows them into the sea and literally loses his own life. The head of the team decides to save him, endangering their chances of winning the competition. Will he be able to save the dog after all?The story is based on the 2016 non-fiction book "Arthur:The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home" by Mikael Lindnord (the head of the team here). Since it's a true story, we can overlook a few uninteresting scenes, but the screenplay deserves to be slammed for its slow pace. The film bores you to hell in the first half and somehow picks up in the last 20–25 minutes. Remember, we are talking about a film with a runtime of less than 2 hours. The ideas aren't exciting enough to hold your attention. That's the biggest problem in the movie. I had a nice nap in the middle, and did I miss anything? No. Somehow, the emotional quotient in the last quarter saves the film and provides good meaning as well. But then again, you have a highly dramatic and soapy ending.Mark has done well in the lead role, but there is nothing special about him. The character is a simple human—nothing as adventurous as it should have been—so you don't feel any thrills. The dog looks adorable, though. The other actors are there only as supporting actors, with small small scenes coming in between when Mark or the dog are either off the screen or are involved in a group discussion. Simu Liu Juliet Rylance, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ali Suliman, Bear Grylls (how can you waste him?), and Paul Guilfoyle have been hardly noticeable out there. Sad, but true.The camera work by Jacques Jouffret gives you a few breathtaking scenes of dangerous stunts. Gary D. Roach's editing doesn't help in the first half but is comparatively much better in the second half. The background score doesn't leave a mark, and the production value is decent. Simon Cellan Jones's film may hunt down the pet lovers due to the solid bonding shown between the man and the dog, but as a cinematic experience, it lags way behind. Tampering with the original source material would have been terrible, and it's good that he didn't fall for that trap. However, Simon could have made it more adventurous and emotional than just a plain, simple drama. As a whole, Arthur The King can be watched as a slow drama, but unfortunately, the adventurous treatment is compromised.