The Kid Who Would Be King sounds like a dumb family film at first glance, but like anything, you can’t judge a book by its cover. When you look closer at The Kid Who Would Be King, you not only find out that it’s bad, but it’s really bad. I really hate this movie.

The Kid Who Would Be King tells the story of a kid named Alexander Elliot, a schoolboy who gets picked on by generic stock bullies. One day, Alex finds a sword in the stone and pulls it out learning that it is in fact, Excalibur. Alex goes on a quest with his friends and the wizard Merlin, who has taken the form of a teenager, to find his father for he believes he might have the answer to why he was able to pull the sword from the stone.

So, yeah, The Kid Who Would Be King is a great setup for some action packed fun, right? Wrong. You know how in most bad kids films like Cats and Dogs or The Grinch where there are some cliches and stuff that’s been done before? Well, here we just throw them all in and scramble them up like eggs. I mean it, from the badass girl who can drive a car despite her age, to the bullies, to the dumb CGI monsters that chase after our heroes, everything in this movie is just cut and pasted from every other fantasy, action, kids, whatever movie.

So, it may be generic, but it’s at least simple, right? Oh, you bet. You see, it turns out that there are these skeletons who can only come out at night, where Merlin can’t come out because it drains his magic. But there’s this eclipse that makes it so that Merlin can fight the skeletons and then there’s this whole story about Alex trying to find his father, and an evil sorceress trying to enslave humanity...what? Your brain hurts just by reading that? Well, I pity the poor fool who goes to the theaters to watch this in person.

The characters are so forgettable. I’m serious, they are some of the most recyclable archetypes you will ever get. Even Morgana Le Fay, freakin Morgana Le Fay is probably the most forgettable character in all of this! She’s built up as this badass witch who can turn into a dragon, but for most of the movie, she’s stuck in this lame, fake looking cocoon!

There’s only one good thing about this film that I actually like, and that’s the twist. Spoilers, obviously. Right when it looks like Alex has finally found his father, he learns that he was also an alcoholic who didn’t love him and his mother. And it’s scenes with Alex and mother that are actually quite good. But that’s a big problem. How is it that the fantasy stuff in this movie is underwhelmed by the realistic stuff! It’s like if in Harry Potter, the most engaging aspects are the scenes with the Dursleys!

Overall, The Kid Who Would Be King is pretty bland, forgettable, and has only one good thing that kind of makes it a little worse. If you really like it, more power to ya, but for me, I don’t think this film is worthy.