When it comes to Hollywood Cinema, it’s pretty straightforward to pull the heartstrings of the viewers by telling a heartwarming story about a man’s relationship with his dog. It’s not hard to win over audiences with a story between a man and a canine, and Arthur the King could’ve been one of those stories.

This is not to say that Mark Wahlberg found a way to screw up this formula, it’s only meant to say that the bar is not very high when it comes to achieving that goal.

At this point in Wahlberg’s career, you pretty much know what you’re going to get out of him. He isn’t going to surprise you with an Academy Award-winning performance, but he won’t be as bad as he was in The Happening.

Wahlberg has found favor in his career when he can tell a real life story and bring it to the big screen. Films such as Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day, and Father Stu have proven, over and over again over the last couple of years, Wahlberg can be good if you put him in the right project.

So it should be a layout for Wahlberg to do the same thing in Arthur the King, where moviegoers should go into a pretty good movie. The film is the story of a selfish competitive man named Michael Light (Wahlberg) who suffers defeat in three consecutive world racing championships in Costa Rica.

Michael is a man who knows how to win; he just doesn’t have the ability. It turns out that Michael’s inability to work well with others had costed his team several championships, to the point sponsors no longer wanted to grant him money as they see him as a losing investment.

He manages to find an investor who is willing to sponsor him. However, he must bring back one of his old teammates into the fold in order to get the cash. With one last chance to prove himself to the world that he can win on the grand stage, Michael assembles his best team to date.

However, the team gets an unexpected member in the form of a stray dog who follows them throughout the jungles of the Dominican Republic. When the dog shows more resolve than the rest of the team, Michael takes an even stronger liking to him as the race becomes a little bit more about winning.

The most fitting word to describe this movie is: serviceable. As mentioned earlier, you’re not going to get any new tricks out of Mark Wahlberg at this stage of his career. He is only as good as the people around him, both in front and behind the camera.

Arthur the King showcases some notable faces such as Simu Liu, who you guys may know as the lead role in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Nathalie Emmanuel known for her work in the Fast & Furious franchise. The problem is their characters are very one note and one dimensional.

The actors aren’t given much to work with in order to bring their characters’ life to the story. Behind the scenes, we have writer Michael Brandt — known for his work on the various NBC Chicago television shows — along with director Simon Cellan Jones, who has worked with Wahlberg in a few projects before.

The film hedges its bets on the audience being sold and thrilled by the relationship between Wahlberg’s character and his canine companion. Because of this, a lot of the flaws in the movie fall in between the cracks.

A glaring problem is that canine character is not present for as much of the film as you would think. When the dog is absent, the film comes off as a generic adventure film akin to CBS’ The Amazing Race.

Arthur the King is a film that is right down the middle, making it a mediocre film at best. A film that is not bad enough to be terrible but not good enough to be memorable is a film that is only good for one viewing and not much else.

Audience will desperately look for a heartwarming movie experience in Arthur the King. Unfortunately, I doubt that desperation is going to match the effort that was given in this movie.

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