Arthur The King
- jeffgerst
- Mar 13, 2024
- 2 min read
PG-13 2024 Adventure/Action 1h 30m
Arthur The King is based on a true story about an adventure racer who encounters a stray dog during a cross-country race. In real life, the racer is Michael Lindnord of Sweden and he races across Ecuador. In the movie, he is an American named Michael Light (Mark Wahlberg) racing across the Dominican Republic. In both universes, there is a stray dog named Arthur. The movie is probably best described as “inspired by actual events.”
Michael Light is a lifelong adventure racer, who has been called “the best to have never won.” Facing the end of his racing career, he gathers a team for one last race and one more chance to win the world championship. Joining him on the team are a social media influencer (Simu Liu); a racing legend with a bad knee; and the daughter of a legend racing at her dad’s insistence. An adventure race involves multiple stages, multiple checkpoints, and hundreds of miles of terrain. Racers can choose any path but need to pass through the checkpoints. A couple of days into the multi-day race, Light’s team encounters a stray dog who they end up feeding some meatballs. The dog likes meatballs so much they decide to name him... Arthur. They miraculously encounter the dog again after traveling a couple hundred more miles. The dog becomes a part of the team and continues on the race with them.
Arthur The King is a Mark Wahlberg vehicle. He saw a segment about this story on ESPN and pursued the movie rights. This explains how this Swedish racer becomes American Wahlberg. Wahlberg does a nice job with the movies' racing and action parts. However, in the more dramatic portions of the movie, I will describe his performance as “over-emoting.” He shouts at others how special and different this dog is and it's a bit much. Also, even though this is a “true story,” there were several moments that lacked plausibility and caused the movie to feel a little more “Disney” than “drama.”
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed Arthur The King. However, Wahlberg’s heavy-handed acting and the occasional “Disney” moments prevent it from being a better movie.
