King Arthur purports to be the "true" story of Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, but after enduring its vicarious delights, I'd rather have Monty Python any day. You can tell he's a king, he's the only one not covered in shit. Having seen the film before hearing the album, I must admit that little beyond the fanfare of the opening credits stuck in the mind and the sneaking suspicion that maybe Zimmer had, for me, worn himself out, churning out boring rehashes of earlier triumphs (Gladiator and The Thin Red Line, in particular). I'm not sure yet, but I finding myself warming to his scores less and less, there certainly isn't really seem to be quite enough for me to want to actually defend him from his detractors as I have been known to do. It's not that the quality has declined in real terms, but Zimmer is offering less and less new with each effort.

The obligatory song opens the album, intoned by Moya Brennan and is something akin to Enya on steroids, beefed up with full orchestra, while curiously alluding (coincidentally, I am sure) to the lovely melody for Cole's Song in Kamen's wonderful Mr Holland's Opus. Being a Bruckheimer production, Zimmer is clearly allowed plenty of leeway to avoid subtlety and Woad to Ruin (can you hear that? It's my side splitting) starts out in blistering style with grim, yet noble and heroic fanfares with a segue into some bracing action. Unlike the more elegant nobility of The Last Samurai, Zimmer pulls out all the stops and goes for thumping spectacle. It ought to be terrible, but it's well conceived enough to be more modestly engaging. Just as well, there's a lot of it and it doesn't let up moving onto the curiously titled Do You Think I'm a Saxon? which continues to clatter along. The grandest aural blasting comes round in Budget Meeting (hardly a title suggestive of a great battle) with percussion, brass and chorus all fighting for the mic's attention, blissfully unbothered about causing tinnitus.

Hold the Ice (where, in the film, I rather expected some of Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky to kick in at any moment) starts with a little Moya Brennan and a little more sombre elegy, but Zimmer builds the material into something thicker and more melodramatic. Any modicum of restraint that he showed in Gladiator is gone here. Perhaps it's pointless to grumble at the predictability, but I really do/did believe Zimmer to be competent enough to write something different, but King Arthur is just another archetypal Zimmer action score. The only difference between them these days is whether the action goes for OTT (as here) or more reflective (as for The Last Samurai). Traditionalists will find it a bore, but I suspect most will likely find excitement and just enough lyricism in the quieter parts to be satisfied; it never stops still long enough to actually be boring. However, anyone who has any number of his earlier scores will hear yet another Zimmer amalgam.

Rating ~

1. Tell Me Now (What You See) (4:34)
   Performed by Moya Brennan
2. Woad to Ruin (11:31)
3. Do You Think I'm Saxon? (8:42)
4. Hold the Ice (5:42)
5. Another Brick in Hadrian's Wall (7:11)
6. Budget Meeting (9:43)
7. All of Them! (10:24)

Total Time ~ 57:45