‘Arthur the King’ blends canine-movie, sports-movie cliches to counter dumbed-down dialogue
“Arthur the King” — 2 stars
Let’s examine some of the more scintillating lines of dialogue from Simon Cellan Jones’ sports movie “Arthur the King” in the order they occur.
“It’s crazy!”
“It’s crazy!”
“This is crazy!”
“That’s crazy!”
“It’s crazy!”
“It’s crazy!”
Repetitive verbal cliches like these are just the beginning of the problems with former Chicagoan Michael Brandt’s highly overwritten, explanatory screenplay.
No need for the actors to convey emotions or thoughts through their faces or gestures. They bluntly tell us about their feelings and concerns. Constantly.
No need for the visuals to propel the story or define the characters. The characters explain exactly who they are and what’s happening to them at every turn.
This could well be the blabbiest sports movie I have seen. It’s as if the filmmakers feared 30 seconds might pass without someone talking, talking, talking.
All this jibber-jabber compromises what could have been a visual feast of a narrative set around the globe.
“Arthur the King,” based on Mikael Lindnord’s book “Arthur: The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home,” opens by crosscutting between its two main characters, athlete Michael Light (Mark Wahlberg) and a scruffy dog eventually named Arthur.
Both possess advanced survival skills. Both experience pain and suffering through injuries and hunger (mostly the dog for hunger). Both exhibit indomitable spirits.
If you fail to pick this up, don’t worry. It will be explained in excruciating detail later.
Lindnord actually met Arthur while competing on a Swedish team during the 2014 Adventure Racing World Championship in Ecuador. Michael Light — Wahlberg’s Americanized version of Lindnord — competes in the World Championship now moved to 2018 in the Dominican Republic.
Wahlberg’s athlete doesn’t rank as the most self-centered, irresponsible dad and husband in the history of movies.
That title belongs to Richard Dreyfuss’ character in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” a dad who unhesitatingly abandons his two young children and wife — depriving them of financial security and a caring father figure — to go gallivanting around the galaxies with a gaggle of glowing space travelers.
“Arthur the King” centers around a husband and dad whose lifelong dream revolves around competing in and winning the grueling aforementioned 10-day, 435-mile hiking, biking, boating, running World Championship.
To accomplish that, he will sacrifice anything, including his life savings and the financial security of his wife, Helen (Juliet Rylance), and young daughter Ruby (Cece Valentina), a tiny detail he forgets to tell his family about.
Helen has given up her own professional athlete career to become a mom and effusively supportive, one-dimensional sounding board for her ego-ruled hubby.
Now, like Ethan Hunt assembling members of his Mission: Impossible team, Michael convinces some world-class competitors to help him realize his life’s purpose: Chik (Ali Suliman) with a bum knee, but a good eye for shortcuts; Liam (Simu Liu), a self-promoting social media star; and Olivia (“Game of Thrones” actress Nathalie Emmanuel), whose dying father insists she help his old friend Michael.
Wait — what about Arthur?
It takes a long, long time before Michael meets the mangy, starving dog he christens Arthur, named because of his regal bearing and refusal to beg for food. (If you don’t notice this, Michael explains it.)
Arthur becomes a virtual fifth team member and a media sensation, and his heroics merge nicely with both sports-movie and dog-movie cliches to provide “Arthur the King” with just enough commercial appeal to offset the dumbed-down dialogue.
And maybe, just maybe, super athlete Michael might discover something worth sacrificing his lifelong dream for.
It just won’t be for his wife and daughter.
• • •
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Juliet Rylance, Simu Liu, Nathalie Emmanuel
Directed by: Simon Cellan Jones
Other: A Lionsgate Films release. Rated PG-13 for language. 90 minutes