King Arthur in Hollywood

Sophia Myles and James Franco in 20th Century Fox's Tristan & Isolde - 2005

Release date January 13, 2006

Tristan and Isolde (Widescreen Edition) (2006) DVD
Tristan and Isolde (Full Screen Edition) (2005) DVD

In the "medieval" legend of Tristan and Isolde, young lovers become doomed against the forces of politics. "English" knight Tristan wins the hand of the daughter of the Irish King, but the love threatens the truce between their two countries. Or so the info reads on Yahoo.
   The plot summary seems to read like a bashing together of multiple times, end of Roman rule, dark age struggle between Irish settlers and British in the western areas of the isle, and medieval tournaments with chivalric knights. The story seems to follow the general outline of the legend with the usual twists and changes made for personal and political reasons by a modern writer. King Marke (Rufus Sewell) portrays an Arthur style king seeking to unite the tribes against an outside invader, the Irish under King Donnchadh. Isolde is won by Tristan for Marke at tournament rather than as reward for coming to the aid of her father's kingdom. The potion of the legend may have given way to pure passion.
   Perhaps this will be better than last year's King Arthur which was an enjoyable movie but got caught up between a real Arthur and a hodge-podge of legend and modern fantasy. I will follow up with my own views after the opening weekend.

http://www.tristanandisoldemovie.com/

Internet Movie Data Base [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375154/]

http://www.geocities.com/vue2sewell/TristanIsolde/lordmarke1.html info with a spoiler if you so choose to view

Trailer at Tristan and Isolde or http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/tristanandisolde/index.html

Plot summary from comingsoon.net