"One of the 50 Coolest Websites...they simply tell it like it is" - TIME
Arthur | 2011 | PG-13 | - 6.5.4
When a perpetually inebriated millionaire playboy (Russell Brand) is forced by his mother (Geraldine James) to either marry a woman he does not love (Jennifer Garner) or lose his fortune, he finds himself in a difficult situation that is made worse when he falls in love with another woman (Greta Gerwig). A remake of the eponymous 1981 film. Also with Helen Mirren, Luis Guzman and Nick Nolte. Directed by Jason Winer. [1:50]
SEX/NUDITY 6 - A woman walks into a room and finds another woman straddling a man in bed (sex is implied and the man's bare chest is visible); the woman climbs off the man and sits beside him in the bed, the other woman throws a bra at her and makes a remark about the man being addicted to breasts and breastfeeding, and the woman (her cleavage is visible in a half-buttoned men's dress shirt) gets out of bed and quickly walks away as the man watches.
► A woman opens her coat in front of a man to reveal that she is wearing a corset (her cleavage is visible), bloomer-style underwear and high black boots: she crawls onto the man's bed and poses seductively, the man leans over her, she rips open his shirt, makes sexual advances and sexually suggestive remarks, he pushes her away and she crawls after him, hitting herself on the hip with a horse crop; she then pins the man and straddles him as another woman walks in, and the man shouts and shoves the woman off him.
► A man and a woman lie side by side, fully clothed, on a bed while holding hands. A woman kisses a man on the cheek, and the man then kisses her passionately. A man kisses a woman passionately, and the woman looks confused. A woman kisses a man passionately and the man acts disgusted and pushes her away. A man and a woman kiss as say, "Eww." A woman sits on a man's lap in a car and they kiss as the car drives away.
► On multiple occasions we see a large portrait of a man standing with his hand on the back of a woman on her hands and knees wearing a figure-hugging outfit. A woman shows a man a newspaper clip, we see the man wearing a kilt, his legs spread open and with an obviously pixelated area at his groin. A man begins to undress in front of a crowd of people; he pulls off his shirt (his bare chest and back are visible) and takes off his pants to reveal brief-style underwear. A man is about to pull down his underwear but stops. We see a man wearing only brief-style underwear walking through a crowded street and shouting at a woman; his bare back and chest are visible as people watch him. A woman pulls the blankets off a man lying in bed, we see his bare chest and he is wearing brief-style underwear. A man is seen wearing tights and brief-style underwear as part of a costume, and we see a portion of his bare stomach and another man comments that he can see the man's stomach. A small portion of a man's stomach is visible when his shirt pulls up as he lies on a bed. On two occasions we see a man in a bathtub filled with bubbles and his bare chest is visible: On one occasion a woman walks into the room and instructs the man to wash his genitals making a crude remark about not knowing what a woman "had" (implying STIs); on another occasion, a man walks in the room and the man in the tub tells him it is weird that he is in the room.
► A man makes a crude joke about his face being close to a statue's genitals. A man makes a crude joke about going to a "cockfight" with another man, saying that it ."..better be what he thinks" (implying that he is joking about genitalia). A man jokes to a woman that a lump had been found in a man's behind, but he then realized it was his cell phone in his pocket. A man jokes to his mother that he did not know that two girls pictured with him in a newspaper were "underage or men" and that he "found out both the hard way." A woman jokes that a man's plan to keep a woman as a kept woman would save him money spent on prostitutes. A man jokes to a group of people that he was "entertaining" prostitutes. A woman jokes to a group of people that statues go to strip clubs. A man jokes with a woman that another woman is "better for sex" than she is. A man jokingly asks a woman wearing a Darth Vader mask to instruct him to wash his genitals and she does. A woman tells several people about a man's drunken exploits, including bringing three women to bed and not being able to remember and then waking up every morning wondering if he had contracted an STI. During a conversation between a man and a woman, the woman says that they had slept together and then smacks the man on the behind. A man tells a crowd of people that he had slept with three women standing in front of him, and the women giggle and smile. A woman holds up lingerie she received as a gift in front of several women and a man jokes that the woman might come home and find him wearing it. Using slang language, a man tells a woman that he had tried to have sex to cure her of meanness. A man on the back of a horse makes a crude remark to a woman about his genitals being crushed. A man makes a joke to his mother implying that he has a pornographic video of a woman. A man jokes that he used to live inside his mother's womb. A man jokes that marriages are to validate unwanted pregnancies. A man jokes to a woman that he has a beautiful ceiling above his bed, and then says he did not mean it in a "cheeky way."
► We see a man wearing a costume with a plastic sculpted bare torso and he playfully rubs the plastic nipples. A man holds up two bowls to his chest to mimic breasts and shouts that he is a female robot. We see a photograph of a man holding two cups to his chest to mimic breasts. A man walks out of a woman's closet and we see a woman's bra draped over his shoulder (he is fully clothed). A woman's bra is seen draped over a bathtub where a man is sitting, fully clothed.
advertisement
VIOLENCE/GORE 5 - We see a woman lying in a hospital bed (it is not explained what illness she has) and we later see her climbing into a bed with a heart monitor attached to her hand; she falls asleep and we see her dead the next morning (a woman confirms that she has no pulse).
► A man fires a pneumatic nail gun into a piece of plastic sheeting and another man walks out from behind the sheeting with two nails sticking out of his chest and arm; the man pulls the nails out and drops them to the ground, and a small amount of blood is seen on his shirt and arm as the other man asks if he needs to go to the hospital or if he is losing a lot of blood.
► A man shoves another man's face close to a spinning table saw, the man shouts that he only needs to put out his tongue and he would not be harmed because the saw will turn off if it senses moisture; the man struggles as his face is pushed closer to the blade and the saw shuts off just as it is about to cut his tongue; he is unharmed.
► A woman punches a man in the face, he falls backwards and an older man grabs him and pins his arms behind his back; the older man instructs the woman to punch the man again but she is interrupted when another woman shouts at her and we later see a small amount of dried blood on the man's lip and a red mark on his chin from being punched. In a boxing ring, a man punches another man in the arm and then apologizes as they spar. A woman puts on boxing gloves and enters a boxing ring, she punches a man, knocking him to the ground, and he says that she hurt him but he appears unharmed. A man grabs another man by the shoulder and crotch and hoists him onto the back of a horse.
► A car (looking like the Batmobile) drives erratically through a crowded city street, police cars follow it, and the man driving the car is instructed by the passenger to press a button, which causes flames to shoot out of the back, almost hitting the police cars chasing it; the car crashes under a massive statue of a bull, and the driver and passenger are unharmed but arrested.
► A woman threatens a man, saying her father will cut off his genitals and then hits the man with a horse crop. A woman threatens a man by making him recall a table saw being very close to his tongue. A woman threatens, half-jokingly, to bite off the other ear of a man if he does not listen to her. A man shouts at another man. A woman finds a watch belonging to a man in another woman's purse, she then makes a joke that the woman can steal a priceless statue on her way out of the house and when the woman attempts to grab the statue the other woman shouts at her. A man shouts and we hear a crash after a woman warns him not to touch a hot plate.
► A man asks a woman to help him by getting a woman that is magnetically stuck to the bottom of his bed to go away. A man wearing a robe and sitting in a bathtub dramatically tells another man that he is going to drown himself; we see him sink into the bathtub but later he is seen unharmed. A man half-jokingly asks a woman to give him an entire bottle of aspirin to take, since his life is over. A woman jokingly asks another woman if she had killed Minnie Mouse, the woman jokes back that she did not let her suffer. A man jokes that a woman can use a pair of scissors to castrate him. A man jokes that he is "bound up like a little Japanese girl's foot." A man and a woman discuss how their parents had died: the woman says her mother had died a year earlier and the man says his father had died when he was younger, and he then jokes that he could then go home and butcher his mother. A woman, telling the story of a man, tells a group of people that he had vomited on two women in his bed and then lost control of his bladder over the third and was too drunk to remember. A man jokes, as he eats a PEZ candy, that he always imagined himself eating candy from a hole in a woman's neck. A woman tells another woman that a cup of tea tastes like sewage.
► A woman is lifted up by a floating magnetic bed as a man watches, she is pinned against the bottom of the bed and he warns her that he cannot turn off the magnet because the bed would fall and crush her. A man wearing a large gummie bear costume drunkenly falls backwards down a flight of stairs and lands at the bottom unharmed.
► A man with his hand wrapped in a bandage hands a woman a plate and says to be careful to not eat the bloody eggs since he had cut himself; he then takes the plate away (we do not see any blood). A woman licks a napkin and then uses it to wipe a man's face; the man makes a disgusted face. A woman squirts a water bottle in a man's face and he shouts and closes his eyes saying that it was vodka in the bottle.
LANGUAGE 4 - 5 sexual references, 2 scatological terms, 10 anatomical terms (4 mild), 4 mild obscenities, name-calling (weird and racist, lesbian Simon and Garfunkel, Little Orphan Annie as a man, vile, spendthrift, cheeky, blind leading the drunk, Mr. Lincoln, dark and twisted, pampered, Snobson, sleepy lunatic, silly bugger, useless man, miserable old woman, primpanzee, little tart, squares, evil, dragon), exclamations (bloody, darn it, shut up), 1 religious profanity, 7 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - A man drinks liquor, beer and wine in excess throughout the movie, drinking to the point of drunkenness on multiple occasions including in front of a crowd of children and to the point where he is slurring his words and cannot walk, a man frequently drinks liquor from a flask, we see multiple people passed out (presumably from alcohol) with empty bottles of alcohol surrounding them, a man is asked by police officers if he is drunk and when he says he has remained drunk since their last run-in the police officers arrest him, a woman acts intoxicated and tells a man that she had two bottles of wine, we hear a man tell a story of when he ran over his mother and sold his child's tricycle when he was on drugs and drunk, a woman tells a group of people at an AA meeting about a man's drunken exploits, and a man jokingly asks a woman if she drank as a child and says that he drank less as a child. A child asks a man if he is talking about drugs and we hear other children then ask the man if he is on crack, coke, or meth (the man says no), a man says that a woman had turned a "crack den" into a condo and another man jokes that he had "done the opposite."
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Alcoholism, addictions, Alcoholics Anonymous, Evander Holyfield, Grand Central Station, Kanye West, PEZ candy, Statue of Liberty, being spoiled, trust fund, endowments, Chrysler building, Toad and Frog books, Darth Vader, losing a loved one, arranged marriages, disappointment, dishonesty, publishing books, suicide.
MESSAGE - Money cannot buy happiness, and true love is worth more than any amount of money.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
how to
support us
PLEASE DONATE
We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.
NO MORE ADS!
Become a member of our premium site for just $1/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we don't always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.
how to
support us
PLEASE DONATE
We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.
NO MORE ADS!
Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.