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King Arthur: Legend of the Sword starts with Eric Bana fighting hundred-foot tall elephants that are controlled by sorcerers, and then proceeds to get even more bonkers from there. While Guy Ritchie's fantasy reboot will likely draw comparisons to misguided oddity flops like 2013's The Lone Ranger or last year's Gods of Egypt, King Arthur is a much more entertaining disaster. It's as incoherent as either of those films, and features performances that are all over the board. But it's an absolute blast; nutty, delightful and blissfully idiotic.

Following the box-office flop that was Man from U.N.C.L.E., Ritchie returned to what repopularized him in the first place and made another Sherlock Holmes sequel. Only this time, King Arthur is the man with the pipe, Jude Law is a scenery-chewing baddie, and instead of a mystery to solve, there are giant CGI snakes, bats, and rodents. This is as wild and absurd as mainstream Summer entertainment gets, and anyone tired of the same regurgitated spit-up from major studios will be refreshed and energized by what Guy Ritchie has haphazardly tossed together.

Ritchie, unsurprisingly, goes overboard on style and editing. Daniel Pemberton's eclectic score is allowed to blast through the cinema speakers as Ritchie throws smoke and ash flakes all over the screen to introduce the Demon King, the serpenty Lady of the Lake, and Charlie Hunnam's glorious abs (which honestly need such help from the score). Hunnam was reportedly prepared to physically fight Henry Cavill for the role, which would have been a lovely extra for the blu-ray.

The cast includes (in addition to Hunnam and Law) Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Aiden Gillen, and Djimon Hounsou, all delivering performances that are either flat, corny, or overly committed, which makes the production feel even more schizophrenic. The cross-cutting between three different time-lines in the same scene adds to this (but it's undeniably efficient filmmaking; conversations and sequences that would waste an hour only last a few minutes!). But make no mistake, this is a highly enjoyable blockbuster. It's a bit touch and go, but the moments of true cornball zaniness more than make up for it. And yes, this King Arthur movie is "zany." Go see it on a big screen, with big speakers, and a big grin. This is what it looks like to burn 175 million dollars and it's a spectacular flame.

Score: 7/10