July 12, 2004, 9:49AM

A dark and stormy knight
New 'King Arthur' knocks the polish off knights in shining armor
By BRUCE WESTBROOK - Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

King Arthur doesn't ignore the sparks between Guinevere (Keira Knightley) and Arthur (Clive Owen), but it's not the pageantry of love that was seen in Camelot.

LOS ANGELES -- Potential blockbusters often start shoveling hype months in advance of opening day. But King Arthur, with few stars to trumpet, has decided to tease us instead, hoping viewers will embrace it with a sense of discovery.

Besides, just a few weeks ago, the film -- which opens Wednesday -- was still being tweaked with reshoots and edits. Even King Arthur's creators didn't know exactly what King Arthur would be -- until producer Jerry Bruckheimer unveiled the final cut recently for a packed house at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Perhaps sensing that a crowd of journalists, industry types and test viewers might be perplexed to see a classic tale turned topsy-turvy, the action maestro of Armageddon and Pirates of the Caribbean issued an alert.

"You will see Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere," Bruckheimer said. "But you won't see a love triangle. This is not the traditional Arthur story."

Instead, it's a brawny tale of swarthy, sweeping, down-and-dirty action, reworking the hoary legend by grounding it in ancient history.

Screenwriter David Franzoni, a history nut who also co-wrote Gladiator, spent more time studying the Sarmatian warrior culture from which he thinks Arthur sprang than viewing such wide-ranging Arthurian movies as the romantic musical Camelot, the lunatic comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail or the vivid, magical Excalibur. He likens King Arthur more to a Western bloodbath like The Wild Bunch, or the Vietnam War tumult of Apocalypse Now.

"Arthur is like Martin Sheen's character at the start (of Apocalypse)," Franzoni said of his war-weary title character, played by rising British actor Clive Owen. "And what ensues is like the fall of Saigon, with America pulling out and chaos erupting."

In King Arthur, the occupying Romans abandon Britain, which warring factions then claim. Roman loyalist Lucius Artorius Castus -- a soldier of historical record -- is caught between feuding Picts, Celts and Saxons. Britain needs a new leader, and a reluctant Artorius -- Arthur -- enters the breach.

Such events are set in the Dark Ages of the fifth century, not the medieval 15th century of most Arthurian tales, with their castles, magic and knights in shining armor. Franzoni's Merlin (Stephen Dillane) isn't a magician, but a mysterious guerilla leader. The film is set in the Dark Ages of the fifth century, not the medieval 15th century of most Arthurian tales, although the round table remains intact.

As for Guinevere (Keira Knightley), she's no delicate lady batting her eyes, but a Pict warrior woman with a political agenda. She picks Arthur over fellow knight Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd) because he's a forceful ally to help rally her cause.

Romance also blossoms, but "this is about as far from If Ever I Would Leave You as it gets," Knightley laughed the morning after the screening, referring to a love song from Camelot, her favorite film version until now.

Director Antoine Fuqua, who made the hard-edged police drama Training Day, wanted British or European actors in his cast.

"I also wanted actors you didn't know," Fuqua said. "I wanted real actors who were well trained in the theater and maybe hadn't had a chance on the big screen. I wanted people who had to be there -- and weren't running for the jet."

No director is going to diss his own movie, but Fuqua was a bit down about Arthur's final cut.

"It was agreed upon that this would be an R-rated movie, and that's what I shot," he said. "But the audience tracking showed that a lot of young people wanted to see King Arthur, and in just the last week it was decided to (issue) a PG-13."

He shrugged about having to make last-minute cuts.

"It's a big machine," Fuqua said of the production, which cost a reported $100-million plus. "This isn't what I shot, but I've got to roll with it."

He said he's "happy if this makes a lot of money and we can all keep making movies. But I also try to give my work my signature, and when that's changed because of finances, that affects me. Then, it's not a creative choice but a business choice."

To get a PG-13, Fuqua had to cut "quite a bit of violence" and part of a love scene between Arthur and Guinevere. He had already shot a new ending to "change the tone."

His only solace now is that "you'll see it all on the DVD. There will be an R-rated director's cut, as well."

Owen, who just flew in from a film set in Texas, said he's "not sure how necessary it was to make it more violent. I think the battles were fantastically staged, and I'm not sure that more violence would be that much different."

Knightley feels it has "quite enough" action.

"The fight scenes are absolutely spectacular," said the 19-year-old Londoner, who also starred for Bruckheimer in the 2003 megahit Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and will return for its sequel.

Getting to be "one of the lads" when it came to action is what drew her to King Arthur.

"When I first heard they were doing it," she said, "I thought, great, but what's the point? We've seen it so many times. But to break the romantic-fantasy mold and put Guinevere in a harsh reality was extremely exciting to me."

Knightley trained for three months to get in shape -- far more than she did to portray a soccer player in Bend It Like Beckham.

"I worked out for two hours a day, four times a week -- did a lot of weight-lifting to get my muscles up," she said. "I think I doubled my muscle mass. I also had to learn knife-fighting, sword-fighting and archery, and I learned to ride a horse."

Owen also was a novice rider.

"It was all about the horse riding," he said. "As an actor, you audition. They say, 'Can you ride?,' you say, 'Of course,' and then you rush out for lessons. I did months of work on horses, until I was pretty fearless and looked forward to anything."

That included riding at high speed into "smoke, fire and huge crowds of noisy, loud extras," he said. "We rode at quite a lick into smoke, without being able to see the other side, and just trusted what the crew told us."

Owen, 39, is well-known in his native England, where he often stars onstage and on the telly. Americans may remember him from the Oscar-nominated Gosford Park (he played a valet) and for his role as a driver in BMW ads directed by action kings John Woo and Tony Scott.

Recently, there's been talk about him becoming the next James Bond, but Owen dismisses it.

"That's totally media speculation," Owen said, adding diplomatically, "I think Pierce Brosnan has been a great Bond who reinvigorated the franchise, and as far as I know he's doing another one." (Brosnan is, indeed, signed for the next Bond film, his fourth.)

Owen just completed filming the crime thriller Sin City for Austin director Robert Rodriguez.

"What a fantastic setup he has there," Owen said. "He is his own studio. He's completely out of the loop and on his own, with an incredible, healthy environment for making movies." Under pressure from the studio, director Antoine Fuqua cut some of the film's violent scenes in order to get a PG-13 rating..

Though a huge Hollywood project, King Arthur was a bit removed, as well. It was shot in verdant Kildare and Wicklow counties in Ireland. Bruckheimer built sets to depict fifth-century Britain, including portions of the massive Hadrian's Wall, which divided the barbarian north from the Roman south.

"Like that wall, the main threads of this story are historically substantiated," said Owen, whose previous favorite Arthur film was Excalibur.

"The fabric of society was crumbling, and there's evidence of an elite group of warriors who'd been fighting for Rome and then had to fight for their own people when the Romans left."

But the filmmakers took liberties with the costumes. As a result, our heroes look like fifth-century rock stars, wearing leather pants, red cloaks and thin shells of armor, while Knightley is scantily clad, laughably so, in a chilly environment.

While growing up in Britain, both she and Owen absorbed Arthurian legends but now sound ready to abandon them.

"It's part of the fabric of your upbringing," Owen said. "You read storybooks about King Arthur, see movies, play with castles and knights. But I don't think I ever took the story that personally.

"What attracted me to this is that it was so different," he said. "It shows a brutal, scary, dangerous, chaotic world. The traditionalists will hang on to the romantic version, the classic myth. But that myth evolved over a long period of time, and I think this interpretation is as valid as any."

Thanks to clemato