Mark Wahlberg’s Schmaltzy Dog Drama Arthur the King Could Be Worse

Exactly three months after the release of his comedy The Family Plan, Mark Wahlberg is back in our theaters with a second film from English director Simon Cellan Jones. Less an instance of an auteur in his grindset mode, this double dose was apparently due to production and distribution issues on Arthur the King, delaying the release of a film initially announced five years ago, filmed three years ago and then languishing since. Meanwhile, The Family Plan was filmed in late 2022 and released months later, sating any and all Jones/Wahlberg purists. The ongoing collaboration between the television director and the star of Ted and Ted 2 is gearing up to be the least exciting team-up of all time, seemingly set on crafting gratingly inoffensive films which were solely meant to be played by moms on the verge of dozing during a long flight, to rock them gently to sleep like a lullaby.

To its credit, Arthur the King—which is based on the true story of Mikael Lindnord, chronicled in his 2016 memoir Arthur – The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home—is a slight improvement on The Family Plan, a film which truly tests the limits of what the term “comedy” means to us as a culture. Arthur the King, on the other hand, is a frequently heartstring-tugging inspirational dog movie that does little to excel beyond acceptability yet manages to not be a complete drag to watch. It even has its share of virtues beyond watching Mark Wahlberg continue his crusade to rehabilitate his image as God’s most special little soldier. 

Wahlberg stars as Michael Light, an American version of Lindnord: A middle-aged adventure racer who’s since quieted down into domestication with his wife and daughter. Michael has completed many a tournament but never taken home gold, retiring briefly after a humiliating defeat three years prior which was mockingly shared on Instagram by fellow team competitor Leo (Simu Liu). In the movie’s present of 2014, Michael decides to assemble a team for one last rodeo and one last shot at proving himself. As ever, Wahlberg loves a story where he can play a man battling for his shot at redemption.

At the same time as Michael haphazardly preps to lead his ragtag team—climber Olivia (Nathalie Emmanuel), hobbled navigator Chik (Ali Suliman) and Instagram influencer Leo— through punishing terrain, a scruffy stray dog, hungry and beaten on the streets of Santo Domingo, wanders the city until fate leads him right to Michael’s meatballs. Taking pity on the poor animal, Michael feeds the creature prior to their race, and that act of kindness obliges the creature to trail the team on their grueling trek through the jungles of the Dominican Republic. A testament to the endurance of both animal and man, the dog, dubbed Arthur by Michael for his kingly spirit, remarkably traverses the same terrain as the humans whom he seems indebted to—in particular, a perilous zipline cross leaves the team scratching their heads as to how in the world a dog could have made its way around. Though wounds that the dog incurred from prior abuse start dragging him down, it seems that only death could separate Arthur from his saviors as they close the gap between themselves and that hallowed finish line over 400 miles from where they began.