When Guy Ritchie’s name crops up in the credits that’s when you know you need to sit up straight and pay attention. Although with the amount of insane scenes you’re about to get thrown at you, you’re probably not going to have much choice.

As I saw the ads for King Arthur – Legend of The Sword start cropping on bus stops and Youtube I scoffed at how this dead horse of a story was getting dragged out once again for a high budget flogging. But by God, what a flogging it is.

The movie takes place in the mythical land of England, where Minas Tirith replaces Camelot and Kings Landing stands in for Londonius. Straight out the gate you’re greeted by city sized elephants powered by mages and super powered knights. Fantasy readers might see this is about the closest we’ll ever get to a fight scene from the Stormlight Archives.

Guy Ritchie doesn’t give you time to get bored with Arthur’s childhood, montaging literally anything that could faintly be considered boring. What you end up with is a movie that is sprinting flat out to the next epic pulse pounding action sequence. Even the dialogue inbetween is classic quick fire and witty Lock Stock stuff. This doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a full blown fantasy film. While shows like Game of Thrones has brought modern fantasy into a bleak place where heroes are just the guys who managed to not die King Arthur throws everything in the opposite direction. Every myth, legend, and overblown rumour is true, in fact Arthur didn’t kill 10 men by himself, he killed 100! Scratch that, 1000!

What I’m trying to say is, this movie is so hardcore I’m surprised that Meatloaf didn’t jump out and do a wicked electric guitar solo when Arthur pulled that sword from the stone.

Is it silly? Oh completely. Do you have time to worry about that? Nope.

If you were looking to go on a date with your best bro, make this your choice.