Arthur the King is based on the 2016 non-fiction book Arthur – The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home, which is based off a true story about a captain of an adventure racing team befriending a wounded stray dog. The captain of the team, Michael Light (Mark Wahlberg) names the dog Arthur. With the rest of the team, they set forth on a 435-mile endurance race through the Dominican Republic.

I got the chance to see this a few weeks early. I am deciding to post this on the day of its actual release to avoid any embargoes. Going into this, I was definitely hesitant. Mark Wahlberg has fallen off to me. From his past that I have learned about to nearly all of his latest films resulting in a 0.5/5 for me, I wasn’t sure about this; however, it seemed like a big release, so I wanted to see it to let readers know if they want to see it.

Honestly, this film is a mess that is only elevated by the emotional core of the dog. Literally, the scenes with the dogs were the best parts of the movie and made this better. If it wasn’t for the dog, my thoughts on this would have been much less. The film immediately opens up on Mark Wahlberg leading a team that consists of Liam (Simu Liu) on a race. Very quickly, Wahlberg makes a bad judgment call resulting in the team losing. When they get stuck in mud, Simu Lui’s character takes out his phone and records the whole interaction. Opening up on this was a bizarre choice. Showing the middle of a race just leads to confusion as to who these people are and why we need in the first place. Then, there is Liu’s character recording the situation for the whole world to see. Like, that involves you too, man. That’s not just on Wahlberg’s character. It’s very unrealistic & cheesy, which leans harder into it as the films goes on.

We see Wahlberg living his life with his wife and daughter. Everything seems good. His daughter likes painting his nails. His wife literally smiles throughout the whole film and is only there to guide her husband, like she doesn’t have anything else going on. He also works for his dad in real estate. For a grown man, he throws temper tantrums with his family. With so much going on in the world and people more worried about money, this family actually has it pretty good and should be more grateful. It’s a poor way to introduce these characters.

Once Wahlberg gets his new racing team started, he travels around the world to recruit people. He has to hire Lui back to the team back of his social media presence, which is just dumb. He also teleports to Hawaii to recruit Nathalie Emmanuel’s character. He just magically knows where her and her dad/coach are. He then proceeds to climb up the same mountain that she is climbing and mentions that is her “office.” After a short while, she then proceeds to climb back down. Like, what was the point of Walberg going up in the first place? Since the dog is barely there, all of this feels like it is making up for it by being charming. It instead results in a clunky set up to beef up the runtime.

The moments that we get with the dog during this time, and well as the entire first half are sparse. When we randomly cut to the dog’s scenes, it lacks depth. The dog shows up here and there just to remind you what the movie is really about. There is event a moment in the film where someone gets water for the dog and when they come back out, the dog is just gone, which is never explained. What’s funny is that this entire setup reminded me of Wahlberg’s last film, The Family Plan, a film I despised. Nonetheless, it turns out it is also from the same director. I can’t tell if the director may be getting a bit better or if true story’s are more effective, because the second half is much better in my opinion.

Like I mentioned, the dog is barely in the first half, which can feel purposeless. For a movie titled Arthur the King, the first half is not really about him at all. There’s an intense sequence involving the team having to transport down a wire. It’s a very intense sequence that had me nervous, yet once again, the first half feels like a completely different film than what is marketed. With how much time they spend trying to use “shortcuts” in the race, it actually surprised me how much they were in the lead.

When the film finally has the dog catch up with the team, the film finally finds its footing. I can’t recall any negative component during this time. It was emotional seeing such a small & wounded dog finish the race. Not only did it show that he was finally trusting humans again, but rather he was racing to get his new home. I won’t give much else away, but I feel like it’s worth noting that this film is not 90 minutes long. I saw that somewhere beforehand. The runtime surprised me, because just as I thought the film was about finish, it went out for about another 20 minutes. It delivers on giving Arthur a satisfying conclusion that had me having to hold back tears.

After watching the film, I looked it up to ensure I was understanding the story correctly and if it stayed true to the true story. Not all of it is true and there is some controversy surrounding it. Personally, I wished the film leaned more into how true it was to make it more emotionally effective. It’s difficult to get attached to true story’s when the film surrounding it is taking out the most important pieces that I am sure were a financial decision.

Overall, Arthur the King is good for what it is thanks to the emotional core that involves the dog. As for everything else, it does feel sloppy from the human characters to the first half and everything else in between. If you enjoy emotionally uplifting films about animals, then I think you can do much worse than this one.

VERDICT: Good