Less a "re-imagining" of the Arthurian legend and more a Dark Ages-set remake of The Magnificent Seven, this Jerry Bruckheimer production still manages to be an occasionally exciting adventure with convincingly staged battle scenes. Most of the traditional elements are missing - there's no wizardry, no Camelot and no love triangle - so instead we get Arthur (a subdued Clive Owen) recast as a soldier with British lineage serving in the Roman army, and Guinevere (Keira Knightley) as a woad-wearing warrior. With the mystical nature of the original myth dismissed, what remains is a mud-splattered western-style stand-off, with Arthur and his six loyal knights posted to Hadrian's Wall to repel a Saxon invasion. The knights all look the part - particularly Ray Winstone, who almost steals the film as the hard-fighting father of numerous illegitimate children - but the would-be rousing speeches and obligatory love scene fall flat.

The story of the Arthurian legend, based on the 'Sarmatian hypothesis' which contends that the legend has a historical nucleus in the Sarmatian heavy cavalry troops stationed in Britain, and that the Roman-British military commander, Lucius Artorius Castus is the historical person behind the legend.