Although he's the title character, the canine star of Arthur the King doesn't do much until the film's third act, instead mostly lurking in the background of a predictable underdog sports drama. Arthur the King is very loosely based on the real-life story of adventure racer Mikael Lindnord, who in 2014 picked up a scrappy stray dog during a grueling race in Ecuador. That dog, named Arthur, became an online sensation, inspired an animal welfare charity, and served as the subject of Lindnord's 2016 memoir.
In Arthur the King, the Swedish Lindnord becomes the American Michael Light (Mark Wahlberg), and screenwriter Michael Brandt burdens him with plenty of basic conflicts that can be easily resolved via competitive triumph and canine companionship. Michael's career in adventure racing — a sport that combines running, climbing, biking, and kayaking through the wilderness — has flamed out after a spectacular failure three years earlier, so he's been reduced to assisting in his father's real estate business. At the encouragement of his wife and fellow adventure racer, Helena (Juliet Rylance), he decides to make one last attempt at winning a championship.
Meanwhile, director Simon Cellan Jones occasionally cuts to scenes of a cute stray dog wandering the streets of Santo Domingo, dodging menacing larger dogs and impatient humans. Jones devotes far more time to the bland drama of Michael assembling a team for the upcoming race in the Dominican Republic, especially his reconciliation with hotshot racer Leo (Simu Liu), a social media star who humiliated Michael online after their previous loss. Michael also recruits Olivia (Nathalie Emmanuel), daughter of a renowned climber, and veteran navigator Chik (Ali Suliman), both underestimated outcasts like himself.
Michael struggles to find sponsorships for his ragtag team, and of course there's an arrogant, well-funded rival crew that's heavily favored to win the race. Where's the dog in all this? He's ambling along unobtrusively, finally making contact with Michael at one of the race's rest stops, where Michael feeds him a meatball before the team gets back on the trail.
As Michael's team makes its way through treacherous jungle terrain, the dog improbably follows them, and they eventually pick him up as a mascot, naming him after the legendary King Arthur for his fortitude and dedication. Even after Arthur takes on a more prominent role, the movie still focuses on dull humans' interpersonal dynamics, giving each team member a rote, underwhelming subplot. There's some mild suspense at the end of the race, as Michael is told that Arthur can't participate in the final leg, but the conclusion of the competition is curiously anticlimactic, given the emphasis the filmmakers have placed on it for the previous hour.
Belatedly, Arthur the King then gets to the actual doggy drama, which captivated people online when it really happened. That just means trading one kind of cliché for another, and the movie gets especially manipulative as it places Arthur in peril. Arthur the King isn't as treacly as pseudo-inspirational movies like A Dog's Purpose and A Dog's Journey, but it's still sappy and contrived, relentlessly pulling on the heartstrings of animal-loving viewers.
Wahlberg exudes the same lack of urgency about both winning the race and saving Arthur, and there's no sense of triumph in either outcome. Jones, who previously directed Wahlberg in the atrocious action-comedy The Family Plan, delivers a mostly excitement-free adventure, missing the opportunity to make Arthur a central part of the action. The story is already so heavily fictionalized, why not go all-in on the Air Bud-style extreme-sports dog? That would have been ridiculous, but at least it would have been more memorable than this generic race to nowhere.
Arthur the King
