Review of First Knight

I wanted so badly to like this movie. I've read so many versions of the Arthurian chronicles and I've liked all of them; the Mallory telling remains my favorite. But this. This was an insult to anyone who paid attention in their British/World Literature class, and was most definitely a slap in the face to anyone familiar with the Arthurian Legend in any form. Each and every scene is a direct contradiction to anything recorded. Sure, it's supposedly a "legend," and therefore open to artistic license, but this dismal rewrite becomes nothing more than a good idea gone horribly and terribly wrong. They could have at least gotten the names right. And maybe one or two events? Again, call me a purist, but I refuse to believe Arthur died in anything close to that manner, and I'll go to my end defending it. And this "Malagant" (whoever the heck *he* was, I recall his name nowhere in anything I've ever read) becomes nothing more than a plot device to spice things up when the dialogue starts to get slow again. You can't just bring in the villain because the lines are petering out! By the end of the movie you can just about time his entrances by the steady breakdown of whatever plot is left. And just where was Merlin? Shame on Sean Connery for doing this farce of a movie; I expected much more from an actor of his stature and talent. The chemistry between Gere and Ormond is at absolute zero; he should really stick to movies with Julia Roberts if he'd like to succeed at the box office. Connery is a decent Arthur for all that, but he cannot save this movie. Nothing, not even King Arthur himself, could save this movie. You want magic and interest and Camelot the way most people picture it? Rent "Merlin," the NBC miniseries that came out in 1997 or so.