Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

Got to see the upcoming previews of Jerry Bruckheimer's latest attempt to capitalize on commercial successes, King Arthur. It seems like with the success of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter (which is more for kids, btw), more movie studios are moving towards the medieval theme. Just put a sword in some jabronie's hand and see how well it sells. Since this is a Bruckheimer movie, I have as much faith in this as I would in Bush being responsible for world peace. Just the dialogue alone rings of stinky cheese. Limberger or worse. There's seems to be a need to take these types of genres and "modernize" it. While it's true that most people's IQs have remained in the single digits, putting more of this crap out there doesn't really encourage any hope for double digits. It's like what I said about the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: just because you stick a guy in front of a camera with some accent, doesn't make it good acting, nor a classic film. Troy had some redeeming features by choosing a few good cast members. However, I don't recognize a single face thus far. That might be a good thing because hopefully these new people will try to make a statement on their own. But with a producer like Bruckheimer, I guarantee that this could easily make Keanu Reeves look like Charlton Heston in Ben Hur. Just from the looks of the production, it's not going to come close to any of the films I've mentioned thus far (Harry Potter shouldn't count because it really isn't in the same league). Troy didn't try hard enough and the other bushleague films that came out with the whole anacronistic look were so terrible they remained at the bargain bins at Best Buy. Now we have one of the biggest spenders in Hollywood, but it gonna topple Lord of the Rings for a simple reason: Lord of the Rings was made with a lot of heart and caring. You just can't go around replicating that feeling, which is special. You know you were watching some special with Lord of the Rings; each piece of the saga was made with care and thought (except my favorite Arwen). When you look at these hacks coming to replicate the commercial success, you simply get a vulger feeling of greed in your stomach for these Hollywood producers. I think that's what will make a movie like Lord of the Rings a real classic and these others something that'll fade like a case of the stomach flu.