Film Review – Arthur the King

“Arthur the King” was shot three years ago and was awaiting release for such a long time, actor Mark Wahlberg and director Simon Cellan Jones actually made another feature together, “The Family Plan,” which came out last year. The wrong movie was left on the shelf. Instead of making an expensive action mess for streaming consumption, “Arthur the King” offers a mostly simple tale of physical and mental endurance, bringing viewers into the world of Adventure Racing, which is not a sport that’s been exhaustively examined in film, possibly ever. The challenge is the stuff of cinema, highlighting teams of four pushing through difficult conditions for long stretches of time, learning to work with one another to reach a common goal. There’s also a dog story woven into the picture, with the real-life tale of an athlete and his canine support making for compelling cinema when the production elects to stay away from mawkishness, which it doesn’t always do. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com