Miss Austen should be right up my alley, and yet...

Was autumn always this intense? I have trouble even making it to the gym a modest number of times a month, let alone finding the energy for blogging. But I guess I should be able to write about how there's no pleasing some people, in this case me.

A few weeks ago, I watched Miss Austen, a respectable period drama based on a novel by Gill Hornby. It's well-cast, well-acted, and has the admirable goal of defending Jane Austen's beloved sister Cassandra. She's not much liked by literary historians as she burned most of her sister's letters. However, this drama fights Cassandra's corner. An enduring love for Jane and an eagerness to follow her wishes are shown to be the reasons for the letter-burning, rather than an attempt to sanitise Austen's reputation. I think Austen would have warmly approved.

All the same, isn't it kinda boring?

That's certainly not the actors' fault. Both Keeley Hawes (always a safe bet) and Synnøve Karlsen put in engaging performances as the older and younger Cassandra; Patsy Ferran is a perfect Jane; and Jessica Hynes as my personal favourite, passive-aggressive sister-in-law Mary Austen, is a joy. We follow two timelines. The older Cassandra travels to the deathbed of the brother of the man she was supposed to marry, and takes an interest in his daughter Isabella. Isabella's deceased mother was a firm friend of Jane's, and Cassandra finds her sister's letters in an attempt to keep them from her sister-in-law's clutches. While she reads them, memories resurface. That's where the younger Cassandra and Jane – long-dead in the more recent timeline – come in.

The problem is, not much happens in either timeline. Either Hornby or the TV adapters have attempted to jolly things up a bit with a romance or two, but for once I could have done with less of this particular ingredient. Isabella's interest in the local doctor, who reciprocates her feelings but is too proud to ask again after having been shown the door once (by Isabella's dad), is a tepid affair. The young Cassandra meets an absurdly eligible admirer (wholly fictional, I suspect) while on a family holiday, but as we know that both she and Jane ended up single, it's just irritating to watch her push away her chance at love for no apparent reason. The plot drags quite a bit.

What should bring some zip into the proceedings is Jane's writing, but the flashbacks take place very early in her writing career, so there's not much discussion about her published novels. The exception is Persuasion, which the older Cassandra is reading to Isabella. I loved the flashback, taking place later than the other ones, where we see young(ish) Cassy reading the scene of Louisa's accident for the first time and exclaiming "you killed her!", much to Jane's amusement (Louisa lives). In the later timeline, Isabella is equally on the edge of her seat when the scene is read to her by Cassandra. 

This was great, and I could have done with more in the same vein. That Isabella's impertinent maid Dinah eavesdrops and gets ideas on how to bring her mistress and the doctor together was perhaps a melodramatic twist, but hey, I'm not complaining. We needed a reminder, at this point, as to why we should take any interest in these women at all.

The continuing problem with life and works dramas is that novelists' lives – even the most colourful ones – are rarely as interesting as their books. That doesn't mean they themselves were unhappy. The best thing about Miss Austen (besides Mary) is the sisterly bond between Jane and Cassandra, and I can well believe that they lived very contentedly, as long as they could be together. Whether their life really lends itself to the costume-drama treatment, however, is another matter.

Arguments for and against a Downton Abbey next-generation sequel

When Downton Abbey the series ended, I spent a post arguing for and against the idea of a Downton film (or movie). So it is only fitting that now the final Downton film has aired, I should do something similar, and look at why it could be a good idea – or not – to follow up with a new TV series, this time focusing on the next generation of Downton inhabitants and their friends and relations. Well, whether it is fitting or not, I'm going to do it, and that despite the fact that there is to my knowledge not a hint of a rumour that Fellowes or anyone else has any such project in mind.

For: I can't be the only one who's thought about it? The original Downton characters have made their farewell to the audience, in a very decided manner, in Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. The trailer stated "It's time to say goodbye", almost as a plea to the fans: "Please, don't force Julian to write any more of these". Another movie would be such an obvious cash grab I don't think even we tolerant Downton fans would stand for it. Enough is enough.

But... what if we jumped forward in time, ten or fifteen years or so, and instead caught up with the Downton children as young adults? We have the bones of a new central cast of characters there: George, Sybil, Caroline, Marigold, Tom Branson's new kid (I forget the name)... These often invisible children haven't been given much personality of their own, so they'd be almost like new characters, but still tied to the "Downtonverse". The settings would still be the castle, the Dower House, the village etc., places we've grown to know and love.

I'm generally tired of World War Two dramas, but I dare say we can't miss out on the nervous tension surrounding the question: will George, the heir, make it back from the war alive? There's even room to explore a new version of the Obscure Heir plot which started off the original series. Some long-lost cousin could be revealed to be the heir should George die, and this time it might not be a good egg like Matthew but a very unsavoury character. Moreover, Downton Abbey surely lends itself to being a centre for evacuated children, or something else war-related, with juicy Foyle's War-esque plot lines as a result.

On the other hand, from the Thirties to the Forties isn't that much of a time jump, which could become a problem if you constantly have to check in on old characters and don't give the new ones the space they need. A bigger time jump to the Fifties could give Fellowes or other writers the opportunity to clear the field by stating that at least some of the old guard has passed away. And we could still have the vague threat of an unsuitable heir apparent after George (who, of course, makes it through the war). Here, the vibe would be more Agatha Christie (without the murders!) than Foyle's War.

One original character who would still be very much alive – and bickering, though with less vitriol than in their young days, with her sister – is Lady Mary who, as foreshadowed in the original series, will take the place of the Dowager Countess. Now that's a decent pitch for a period drama, surely? 

Against: The personality-less depiction of the Downton kids means that we aren't exactly on the edge of our seats waiting to see what happens to them. The biggest argument against a next-gen. sequel though, in my book, is the trickiness of the genre itself. One might think that a next generation sequel risks doing less damage to the original than a sequel taking place directly after another story ends. After all, we would mainly be following new characters and storylines. However, a sequel has to address what happens to the original characters, and as a next-gen. sequel takes place so much later than the original story, whatever is said about the original characters' lives is pretty much set in stone. There's no way of walking back from it later on.

To take an example in a completely different genre: recently, Netflix in Sweden finally aired the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I hadn't seen before but with which, apparently, a whole generation of Nickelodeon viewers have grown up. I surprised myself with how much I got into it and, after chomping through all three seasons pretty swiftly, couldn't wait to check out the next-generation-and-then-some sequel The Legend of Korra (bizarrely showing on another streaming service). 

New avatar, new characters taking centre stage, the original protagonists either aged purveyors of wisdom on the sidelines or dead: so far, so good. But when the middle-aged children of Aang, the now deceased titular character of the original series, get in a fight we're suddenly told that Aang favourised the son who'd inherited his air-bending gift over the others. This sounds very unlike the fun-loving, warm-hearted character we got to know in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Aang never gets the chance to set the record straight or make it up with his kids. Because, by this time, he's already dead.

This detail didn't ruin The Legend of Korra for me, but it saddened me a bit, and the Star Wars sequels had similar problems with their original golden trio. Imagine how miffed we would be if we found out, twenty years on, that Molesley never hit the big time with his film scripts or Andy and Daisy ended up fighting every other day. Even if their life would then take a better turn, much time would have been wasted, and there would be no way the already past decades could improve. 

On the other hand, if nothing at all happens to the original Downton crew for twenty years, it gives the impression that they've been in a sort of stasis waiting for a new story to come along. This isn't very  satisfying either, narratively speaking.

At the end of the day, I'm still in favour of a next-generation Downton Abbey TV series. But I acknowledge that it would not be easy to get it right.                      

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is strictly for the fans (and that's OK)

It's been an intense week, and I was tempted to give blogging a miss. But I can't very well do that, as it's Downton time!

Yes, last weekend, I in company with two other avid Downton fans had the greatest time at the cinema watching Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. We weren't alone, either: the cinema was more packed than I've seen it in a long while, and the audience was in a positive mood. The scene where Mrs Patmore declared to Daisy that she was "the daughter I never had" was especially popular, drawing an "aaah" from some audience members. There were snivels and giggles at appropriate moments. All in all, if you're a Downton enthusiast, it's very hard not to enjoy this last hurrah. If you're not, you'd most likely be bored to tears.

I had first planned to follow up on my predictions in my usual manner, but there is little point as absolutely none of them came true. Well, they addressed the Henry question, explaining his no-show with divorce rather than death, but that's about it. 

Mary's old beaux appearing? No such luck. Edith's Marigold secret playing a role? Nope – I'm not sure we even got to see Marigold. Peter Coyle making an appearance? Not even close (though that surely would have been better than the Molesley storyline we got). The Bateses' future? Not much drama there: they both decamped to the Dower House with Lord and Lady Grantham, but the thought that they could quit the servant life never even occurred to them. The butler question? Not a question, it seems: what with Andy staying on at Downton as butler and Daisy as cook, I'm wondering who's actually taking care of Mr Mason's farm. Thomas plotting? Chance would be a fine thing.

I don't think I've ever been as consistently wrong in my predictions before, but in my defence, it's not as if there was much going on instead of my suggested plot lines. The Grand Finale wasn't big on plot, and what little conflict there was had to come from external sources (a quite foxy American swindler, and the absent Henry who by this time counts as an external source). Instead, the film's aim was clearly to give the fans a last opportunity to hang out with (as Disney DVD sequel trailers used to put it) "all your favourite characters". 

This aim was fulfilled. We could leave Downton Abbey with the comfortable feeling that everything will be all right, and everyone gets on quite well really, even Mary and Edith. No need to think too hard about what the outbreak of World War Two (still years away at the end of the film) will mean for young George.

But is the film any good, I hear you wonder? Is it as good as the series? Is it the best of the films, or the worst? I did ponder these questions while watching it, but found them unexpectedly hard to answer. I think I have to say, The Grand Finale is not as good as the series, and probably sits in the middle script- and plot-wise when it comes to the films: better than the Upstairs, Downstairs rip-off that is the first movie but less snappy and pacy than the second. However, of all the proposed endings of Downton Abbey that we've been offered, this is by far the most satisfying, and that is quite a feat. For that reason, I suspect The Grand Finale will have a special place in fans' hearts for the years to come, and the question of how good it is as a film will be considered less important. Only, if you've never watched Downton, for pity's sake don't start with this.

Of course I'm thrilled for Thomas, even though he's so de-fanged at this point everyone seems to have forgotten he was once a villain. His end vignette, complete with the Hollywood sign in the background framing his still harmonious romance with the glamorous Guy Dexter, is all an often sorely tried Thomas apologist could wish for (though he had more chemistry with the nefarious Duke in the very first episode, but never mind). All's well that ends well for my Tommy, even if his entertainingly bitchy lines are a thing of the past.                     

On a roll with books, until...

Judging from my latest blog posts, one would have thought that I'd not done much reading lately. In fact, I was doing pretty well with my reading until not so long ago – I've just been too lazy to blog about it. I finally read books which I actually owned instead of just buying new ones, got in some ambitious reads and finished books I had previously discarded after only having read a few pages. For a while, I was feeling pretty smug, and then the inevitable happened: I got stuck.

The problem is not when you don't get any further with one book, but when they pile up. My first mistake was when I vaingloriously decided that it was finally time to read Sketches by Boz from cover to cover. It's the only major work by Dickens I've only read a fraction of, and that simply wouldn't do. Not for the first time, though, I soon came to a halt, and not by any means because the book is bad or un-Dickensian. There are a lot of humorous descriptions to make one chuckle. The problem is that because of the genre, the sketches are mostly just that: descriptions, with little dialogue or story. With Dickens, I want human drama, preferably with a lot of cutting lines by villains and suchlike. I can stand descriptive parts of his novels because they're so brilliantly written and often funny, but without a plot to hook me I find even the wittiest tableau of a London street hard going.

All right, then, so maybe I could postpone Sketches by Boz a bit longer and read it more piecemeal. But there were other substantial books I could try. I looked forward to Kept by D.J. Taylor, clearly as Neo-Victorian as they come. It was a bit hefty – which is only natural when you want to emulate the Victorian novel – so maybe not ideal to lug to work for my lunch break. My plan was this: at home, I would read Kept, and at work I would dip into The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories. Ambitious, yes, but I could take it: just look at how easily I got into Wuthering Heights a couple of months ago!

You can guess what happened next. I never knew Yanks could be such a downcast lot. Nothing wrong with the writing, it was just so depressing. After four short stories, I started on the Nathaniel Hawthorne one, stopped after about a page with a disgruntled "OK, so she's totally a witch" and set this volume aside as well.

As for Kept, it's annoyingly well-written, which means I have no excuse to give up on it until after a mandatory hundred pages. But the plot lines so far just don't interest me. The art of poaching wild birds' eggs? Some ghastly madwoman locked up somewhere? I need to persevere, but what did I find when I last tried? A lengthy description of a London street!

What conclusions can be drawn? Nothing most readers don't already know: that it's darned hard to find a reading strategy which allows you to virtuously work your way through the piles of books you've bought without getting stuck somewhere. When I was younger, I tried the tactic of alternating between Ambitious Book Projects and self-indulgence reads, but that put too much pressure on the latter and involved far too many ABPs for my liking. 

This time around, I went into a regular self-indulgence bonanza. I re-read the last three Thursday Next novels (I've had my doubts about some of Jasper Fforde's latest novels, but the Thursday Next ones really are brilliant); devoured, for the first time since childhood, an old Swedish translation of Betty Cavanna's A Touch of Magic, a delicious example of having your cake and eating it when it comes to historical fiction (you're invited to tut-tut over the frivolous Shippen girls while at the same time revelling in the drama of balls and suitors); and finally tucked into a Young Adult novel irresistibly called Do You Ship It? I wasn't sure at first, but yes, I did.

Will all this self-indulgence reading give me strength to start up with slightly heavier stuff again?  I've started on The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden, but the jury's still out. Pros: if I know Arden, there will be folklore elements and possibly a villain in the works. Cons: death, disaster and World War One.

The Gilded Age season three: prediction follow-up

Rejoice, costume-drama lovers – we made The Gilded Age happen! At the start, there wasn't as much buzz about the series as one would have thought, seeing that it's created by Julian "Downton" Fellowes. But now it seems to have gathered momentum and a sizeable fanbase, and I'm guessing it's in no small part thanks to a pacy and strong third season.

By now, it's become clearer what the series is, and what it isn't. It won't deliver exactly the same kind of drama as Downton did (I'll go more into that in a bit), but for what it is – a fun romp with the occasional scene that goes a little deeper, set in a glamorous time and with largely likeable characters – it's very good, and I suspect the best costume drama we will get in quite some time.

On to the follow-up to my predictions for this season. I'll try not to be too insanely spoilery, but I do want to gloat as I got more things right than I usually do in my prediction posts.

Gladys will marry the Duke – but not divorce yet YES All right, this one wasn't a hard one to call (though I also guessed what the trailer's divorce talk was really about, and that I am smug about). It was pretty clear from the trailer and on-set footage that there was going to be a wedding, and Gladys was the obvious pick for the bride part. Less predictably, her union with the fortune-hunting Duke hasn't turned out too terribly this far. The Duke of Buckingham aka Hector seems quite a nice chap, if a little prone to be pushed around by the women in his life. Then again, he's not the only man in The Gilded Age to be hen-pecked.

I really liked this turn of events. Not only because it was unexpected, but because it shows that Fellowes and his co-writer Sonja Warfield (who seems to be a strong addition to the team, judging by the episodes she's credited as co-writing) haven't set out to copy out well-known real-life dramas from the Gilded Age and simply foist them on their fictional characters. The Russells may be inspired by the Vanderbilts, but that doesn't mean Gladys is destined to be unhappy with her Duke, as little as it means that her parents are destined to divorce. It's nice to know that there isn't a historical cheat sheet which will give away what'll happen in the series – it makes it far more interesting.       

Agnes and Bertha will both try to stop Larrian (maybe even together) NO, BUT... Agnes and Bertha were shown to be in agreement once this season, but only about a fairly minor plot point. As far as Larrian is concerned, there's as little communication between the two matriarchs as ever. We did get to see, though, that Agnes was not thrilled about the prospect of welcoming Larry as her nephew-in-law, and was eager to encourage any doubts on Marian's side.

Was there ever as wet a blanket as Marian, I wonder? Her paramour isn't exactly the most exciting character either, though he does at least prove to be a capable business man. It is a shame that the central romance  of the series doesn't generate more heat, but there it is. Many great stories have had somewhat underwhelming hero-heroine romances. At least the concept of romance isn't spurned, and for this one should be grateful. Only, shockingly, I find myself missing bitchy Lady Mary. 

Peggy's new love interest's parents (probably the dad) will make trouble YES, BUT... I was right, except it was the prospective mother-in-law who had objections to Peggy, not Dr Kirkland's dad, who was all in favour of the match, though not very forcefully. The Kirkland men continue the Gilded Age trend of being rather too easily manipulated by their womenfolk.  

As for Peggy, she is a little too perfect, but she does have more bounce and more chemistry with her chosen man than Marian does. And the whole idea of including a "black elite" plot line in the series is genius. It's interesting in itself to learn more about the affluent black upper-middle class in late 19th-century New York, and it saves the series from going down the "colour-blind casting" route, of which I'm not a fan (I will save you the rant for now, but I'm not just thinking of the phenomenon from my pale-face perspective, honest). Peggy could do with a relatable flaw or two, but her part of the story is still engaging.    

The butler alliance will be sealed by events (I hope) NOT REALLY, NO I mean, Church and Bannister are friendly enough to each other now. But they're not united in any cause, and though the Van Rhijns/Brookes and Russells are starting to interact a little more, their servants hardly mix at all this season.

Here's where one of the big differences to Downton comes in. It has become clear by now that The Gilded Age isn't really an "upstairs-downstairs" drama. In the original Upstairs, Downstairs, the plot lines were fairly evenly distributed between the Bellamys and the servants, though with a slight advantage for the servants – even events upstairs were largely viewed from their point of view. In Downton Abbey, there was still an even distribution of plot lines, and a slightly mellower approach to servant-master relationships which angered many an armchair socialist (though it's not as if the Bellamys were bad employers, or the Crawleys unfailingly good ones). 

In The Gilded Age, on the other hand, the focus is squarely on the upstairs families. The servants are nice and all, and get more screen time than in, say, The Forsyte Saga, but they don't get many juicy plot lines or for that matter much character development. They're pretty much stuck the way they were in season one. I think Fellowes may have had more plans for the servant side of things at the start, but gave up when all the different characters and plots became too much to juggle.        

Oscar will try to make money YES It's not all plain sailing for doe-eyed Oscar, but at least he's a surprisingly dab hand at business. The plan he has lined up for next season could prove to be interesting.

In the any other business category, one can note that this was yet another strong season for Aunt Ada (though I could have done without the temperance plot), but not the strongest for my favourite George Russell. He did eventually stand up to Bertha, but only after it could have done any good for Gladys or anyone else. His continuing coldness towards Bertha just seems mulish at this point. Plus his sacking of Clay was completely uncalled-for, even if Clay turned out to be a worm later on. J. P. Morgan was quite fun, though.      

The Fantastic Four: First Steps: a good superhero movie, but not much MCU (for good or bad)

I may be a late joiner sometimes – that's certainly true of my interest in the MCU, which until about four years ago was non-existent. But once I'm into something, I tend to stick with it and hope desperately for it not to fail. You could say I'm very Swedish in that regard. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that The Fantastic Four: First Steps will be considered a success, and a drop-off in box-office sales for its second weekend won't be too bad a sign (I mean, it still topped the box-office list domestically, so there's that).

What did I think of it myself? To use a quote from a reaction compilation video on YouTube: I liked it, but didn't love it. Make no mistake, though, it's well worth watching on the big screen, and the two-hour run time is relatively humane. (Is the length of films an equality issue? I have a vague impression that guys can hold it better, especially the young ones, and are thus more positive towards three-hour extravaganzas.)

The strengths of Fantastic Four are very strong indeed. It has likeable characters and is set in a world you are happy to explore. The acting is great and there's a lot of chemistry between the protagonists; they are convincing as "Marvel's First Family". I have a special soft spot for Joseph Quinn's Johnny Storm, and loved the scene where he managed to get through to the Silver Surfer and stir her conscience – after their semi-flirtation, which I also enjoyed, things suddenly got very serious.

The film also does many of the things that those in the know have urged Marvel to do for years. It introduces new characters, and does not rely on nostalgia (not for old MCU films, at any rate). No homework is required: people can watch Fantastic Four without having seen a single MCU film or TV show and follow it fine. Because the film's literally set in another universe, the world building feels fresh and inventive. The sassy "Marvel humour" everyone claims to be sick of is largely absent. The four protagonists' banter is more a way of bonding with one another than anything else, and draws an indulgent chuckle rather than right-out laughs. The effects are good and not rushed: main villain Galactus is an impressive sight.

My personal problem with this is that I like the classic MCU ingredients. I'm by no means tired of "Marvel humour" – it's one of the things that drew me into the MCU in the first place. Another canny thing the MCU films tended to do was to mix other genres with the superhero stuff, in order to attract mainstreamers like me. I was, after all, firmly anti-cape at one time, and to this day the action pieces where protagonists show off their "powers" are still what interests me least about a superhero flick (maybe in competition with all the agonising about "secret identities", which is mercifully absent from this as from most MCU movies).

It has been said approvingly of Fantastic Four, as of its box-office DC rival Superman, that they are very "comic-booky" films designed to win back comic-book readers who've found the Marvel and DC film universes a bit dreary. I can see that. Less dreariness is certainly welcome. But I'm not a comic-book reader – at least not the kind who's read superhero comics. It could be that exactly the ingredients that work best for "real" fans, who actually know and love the comic-book originals of these characters, slightly push away ignorant "normies" like myself.

But if you're into superhero movies, you should definitely watch this one. The story is a bit hokey, and some choices the characters make unfathomable (at one time, I sat whining quietly in my cinema seat: "no, don't tell them"), but it's well made and engaging. For my personal part, though, I think I prefer Thunderbolts*: a slice of the good old MCU, "Marvel humour" and all.    

They don't do entertaining tripe like First Knight anymore

Yesterday would have been the perfect day for blogging. I was stuck at home anyway, waiting for delayed luggage (which still hasn't arrived, by the way). In spite of a number of possible blog subjects, however, I just thought "nah". Why is summer blogging so difficult? Is it the weather? Post-travel inability to settle? Sheer laziness?

Anyway, a less complex subject for a blog post than First Knight, which for some reason (I'm not complaining) has made it to Netflix, would be hard to find. This schmaltzy Arthurian romance was filmed in the 90s, and it shows. I was surprised at how much it triggered my nostalgia. Back in the day, the younger me wasn't much taken with First Knight. I did not see the appeal of Richard Gere as the apparently irresistible Lancelot, and the depiction of Camelot wasn't close enough to how I imagined it (based on reliable sources such as Howard Pyle and the Prince Valiant comic). But now, a number of "gritty" reimaginings of the King Arthur legend later, this film feels endearingly straightforward.

The film centres on the famous love triangle between King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot (I've always felt torn about this part of the lore as Pyle, maybe mindful of his young readers, insisted that Guinevere and Lancelot were "just good friends"). Gere is Lancelot, Julia Ormond Guinevere – more beautiful than envious younger me gave her credit for – and an attractively regal mature Sean Connery is King Arthur. We also have Ben Cross, usually cast as an intensely brooding hero, as the intensely brooding villain Malagant (as far as I know a character made up for the occasion – what's wrong with Mordred, I'd like to know?). Not badly cast, in other words. John Gielgud, never too haughty when it came to his roles, shows up in a bit part.

The challenge anyone who wants to tackle the Arthur-Guinevere-Lancelot triangle faces is that they're all good guys, but I can see that that's part of the story's appeal. First Knight solves the problem by not making Guinevere and Lancelot too duplicitious. They want to do right by Arthur, and only indulge in one bout of passionate kissing (that's when Arthur walks in). It's all very airbrushed, but I'm fine with that. It's in keeping with the silly bit of entertainment this film is.

For it is silly, I'll not deny it. In a battle sequence, Lancelot idiotically removes his helmet to let his locks fly free. Earlier, Guinevere marvels at his ability to channel rainwater in leaves, as if it were a consummate skill. The secondary characters have no function at all except to admire Lancelot's prowess and Arthur's wisdom or (if it's the villain's sidekick) sneer. The film has "formulaic, vaguely historical Nineties adventure/romance" written all over it, and I enjoyed it very much.

So what do I mean by my title? Surely generic adventure flicks are churned out all the time? Well, maybe, but it's not so easy to find entertaining hogwash of this kind, where some effort has been put into making the formula work, nowadays. Take the romance. I was partly ashamed of my prissy "whoa, there" reaction when Lancelot kisses Guinevere, whom he's just met, out of nowhere and claims "I know when a woman wants me". You wouldn't get a scene like that in a 2020s film, which is perhaps no great loss in itself, but a sign of how restricted the parameters of romance have become. When we say that something has "aged badly", what we often mean is that our own age has become more intolerant. Lads should not try this kind of behaviour at home, but fictional romances can't be wholesome all the time – it kills all the fun.

Then there's the Arthurian legend part. For the last couple of decades, when someone tries their hand at the King Arthur story, it's mostly in order to make it more "realistic" and "historical". But this, I would argue, is not what we want from a King Arthur story. We want the round table, Excalibur, Merlin, a brave Lancelot, a witty Gawain, the Lady of the Lake, at least one wicked sorceress, the whole caboodle. Of course that's not in any way a "true story", but the trueness isn't the appeal here, as little as it is in the Robin Hood myth. I've got my problems even with the sanitised merry folk hero Robin Hood, and would stomach him even less well were he to lean more into actual highwayman/robber behaviour.

First Knight does't tick all the Arthurian boxes – there's no Merlin, for example. But it doesn't try to turn Arthur into some boring Roman centurion or local chieftain, and for that I at least am grateful.