Directed by Simon Cellan Jones
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Simu Liu, Juliet Rylance, Nathalie Emmanuel, Ali Suliman

Arthur the King is an adventure racing movie loosely based on the 2016 book “Arthur – The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home” by Swedish athlete Mikael Lindnord. It stars Mark Wahlberg as Michael Light, the American version of Lindnord, the athlete most likely to win but hasn’t. After a strategic fail in his last major team race, Light has decided to give it one more go for glory. He puts together a final team (Simu Liu, Ali Suliman) with his old cohorts (minus his wife) and a new climber (Nathalie Emmanuel) in an attempt to repair their relationship and finally win it all.

In the course of the contest and some meatballs from the friendly Night, a scraggly dog, later named Arthur the King, starts following the team on their trek and manages to guide, bond, and save the team in more ways than one. This is pretty much the gist of Arthur the King.

Shot mostly in the Dominican Republic, Arthur the King is a fairly slick product. Simple in its story, dialogue, and delivery, it gets right to the point and doesn’t waste too much time with exposition. This makes for good pacing and a somewhat more watchable version of reality TV’s The Amazing Race.

Wahlberg does fine as Michael but the real star here is the dog actor portraying Arthur (as of writing, I still haven’t found much information on him yet). I’m a dog owner and it is utterly amazing what this canine can portray on screen. To me, that seems to be the real magic of this movie. Unfortunately, the human characters are fairly 2-dimensional and Wahlberg is… well Wahlberg – the cool and fit everyman in today’s Hollywood.

There isn’t much to hate about Arthur the King because it really has an interesting premise. However, besides the few scenes/scares that stand out, it’s not as exciting as it proposes. The writer, Michael Brandt, tries to milk the complexities out of the characters’ relationships but the film falls short of having a unique voice. But this could be related to the story in the original book…

Crafted to be as accessible as possible, Arthur the King does the usual gimmicks: engaging emotional moments, a little bit of action, and of course, Dogs! You can also get similar fare on Disney + or Hallmark. But sadly, you will likely forget this film after stepping out of the theatre. Better to forget it more affordably on streaming – with ads no doubt.

So have you seen the Arthur The King? Well, what do you think?

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