Meat at the Movies: Goldie Hawn Returns to the Big Screen

So there's a few movies opening up this weekend, and the big attempt at a blockbuster looks to be the new Guy Ritchie film, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. It stars Charlie Hunnam as King Arthur and Jude Law plays the villain, and this movie looks bonkers. Guy Ritchie's pretty well known for his British crime dramas like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, and in more recent years has been doing big studio blockbusters like the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies and The Man From UNCLE, and this movie looks like it kind of combines both sensibilities. It's a big action-fantasy epic that's built around a grimy ensemble and a street rat criminal King Arthur - I had no idea what to expect from this, but critics are saying it's not worth the trouble, that the movie's a mess, that it has no sense of what it's trying to be - supposedly the studio wants this be the first in a whole universe of King Arthur films like a medieval Marvel universe, which seemed like a bad idea even before the movie got mostly bad reviews, so I really doubt that will ever happen.

Then there's the new comedy Snatched, which stars Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn as a daughter and mother on vacation who get kidnapped and have to escape the jungle. It's kind of notable as being the first movie Goldie Hawn has starred in in 15 years (her last movie was 2002's The Banger Sisters). Unfortunately, it looks like her return to the screen is pretty underwhelming, as critics are saying the movie isn't very good. I'm hearing Hawn and Schumer are really good together, but the plot is really thin, the jokes feel outdated, and it's just not very funny.

Finally, there's one smaller film opening up this weekend that's actually supposed to be pretty good - it's called The Wall, and it's directed by Doug Liman, who made The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow. This is a really small-scale Iraq war drama focused on two soldiers pinned down by a sniper. The two soldiers are played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and crazily, WWE professional wrestler John Cena (don't worry, you can see him). I'm hearing it's a very solid psychological thriller, that Johnson and Cena are really good, and it's a very non-traditional kind of war movie, which is neat. It's a good option this weekend when you can't get into the sold-out show of Guardians of the Galaxy 2. And until next time, we'll Meat at the Movies.