Eddie Cantillo Excalibur (1981) Starring: Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey, Nicol Williamson, Corin Redgrave, Patrick Stewart, Keith Buckley, Clive Swift, Liam Nesson, Gabriel Byrne, Robert Addie, Katrine Boorman, Ciarán Hinds, and Niall O'Brien Directed By: John Boorman Review FORGED BY A GOD. FORETOLD BY A WIZARD. FOUND BY A KING. The tale of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, they need no more films for this is perfection. A great representation of one of the greatest legends ever told. The myth of King Arthur brought to the screen. Uthur Pendragon is given the mystical sword Excalibur by Merlyn. At his death Uthur buries the sword into a stone, and the next man that can pull it out will be King of England. Years later Arthur, Uthur's bastard son draws Excalibur and becomes king. Arthur's evil half-sister Morgana sires a son with him, who may prove his downfall. This film is brought is brought to us by great British thespians and I say that because it shows. It's great work, I loved it. The main lead Nigel Terry who plays Arthur when we first see him in Camelot I immediately thought to myself yep that's a perfect choice for King Arthur. Same when I saw Nicholas Clay as Sir Lancelot and just about everyone cast int this picture. The pacing of this movie was great as well. The story movies along in a brisk pace and tells its story in a great amount of time, it's not too long or two short it feels just right. The director John Boorman I feel wanted to tell the whole tale of those wielded Excalibur and make a faithful interpretation of the myth of King Arthur. This one adventurous fantasy that should be experienced especially for those who are fans of the tale of king Arthur. I'm giving Excalibur a five out of five.

vervliet-marcel After all these years and multiple viewings this movie still has scenes powerful enough to bring me to tears. This is by far the best movie about the Arthurian legends ever made, all the others are crap compared to this. The late Nigel Terry is great as King Arthur, I also loved him in Caravaggio, a shame that he was so little known as an actor. Nicol Williamson's Merlin is also unforgettable, in fact the entire cast is excellent. The music (Wagner) fits right in and enhances the power of the images. This is a movie made by a director working at the Heights of his powers and it just doesn't get much better folks.

octagonproplex If any should find the verbiage of the review impenetrable, then congratulations, you possess the prerequisite disabilities necessary for deciphering the deeper logic of this illogically lauded landmark of cinematic stupidity. But by all means, I do welcome someone to please reasonably enlighten what exactly is good about this movie... And while I wait for pigs to fly -- and before getting onto the intricacies of its incompetence -- I will first, in as pithy a fashion as can be mustered, thoroughly explain precisely what is bad about this movie now: EVERYTHING.I first encountered director John Boorman's 1981 abomination "Excalibur" on VHS as a child of that decade. and without any passion recalled only that it never particularly resonated, aside from its memorable molestation of Carl Orff's fantastic "Oh Fotruna" on the soundtrack. Under the ignorant indoctrination of distance, I eventually succumbed to the assumption within popular consensus that it must be pretty good -- afterall, its status as the finest cinematic translation of Arthurian legend is constantly evoked to the point of having created its very own mini mythos. Upon resent sober reevaluation, I disturbingly found myself at a complete loss as to what could have possibly gained this film such a following of ardent acclaimers. I do not know what necromancy has perpetrated such a mass delusion upon this vocal constituency, but their adoration is patently misplaced. Due to its utter incomprehensibility, as I attempt to critique the wall-to-wall flaws of this film, I will dwell exclusively on the deficiencies that render its ponderous plotting unintelligible rather than dare delve into the details of describing the silly scenes arbitrarily stitched together to resemble its said plot.An incoherent unfocused mishmash of checklist attributes found in Arthurian Lore does not unto itself make for engaging cinematic storytelling, when the needed essentials of solid drama are shunned. I stress the faults within Excalibur's "cinematic language" here, because regardless of its adherence to sequential events, it is the dramatist's very purpose to call upon technique to link those happenings with a rationale that lends them credence, creating a suspension of disbelief for their fantastical nature to nevertheless ring true. Rather than allowing even a summery reading, the movie plays like being granted only the chapter titles and footnotes from a sprawling novel to glean inference from, without sufficient context of the vast content composed between to inform how each random caption connects to a cohesive whole. Any decent yarn-spinner resigns to the responsibility to at minimum entertain, if not edify. Artists enter into intmate bonds of good faith with captive audiences, assuring that their attentive trust is a reciprocal investment that will be rewarded in kind with some recognizable or relevant reflection of life as comformation of a shared humanity and therein pay off the indebted obligation owed for luring their patronage. Absent in Boorman's "Excalibur" is any variant of satisfying narrative tropes; Establishing the stakes for audiences to buy into, through engrossing conflicts, relatable ambitions, and objective goals. The anticipatory tensions and delights derived from setting up character and plot details, dynamics, quirks, traits, and motifs to be revisited in inventive ways. Using dramatic-irony, reversals- of-fortune, tragedies, and triumphs to engage empathy and entice desire toward resolution.In lieu of chivalrous ideals, Boorman lathers on stilted misogynistic posturing, and not much else. As a confirmed admirer of composer Trevor Jones, its with apprehension that I admit his music here provides nothing worth note, having been relegated to incidental ambiance due to the desperate amount of "needle-dropping" of Richard Wagner and Carl Orff -- whose classical pieces were already autonomously great before being desecrated in this nonsense and therefore cannot be applied by commandeered proxy to the picture's credit. Character nuance in thought process and relationship dynamics are non- existent, nor is any action granted even a crudely drawn motivation, therefore the drastically broad yet thin arcs are simply devoid of plausibility. The heavy- handed expositional dialogue is truly ridiculous -- every single word that comes out of a character's mouth is an embarrassingly lame soliloquy stating exactly what is already evident, but not explaining any reasoning for any of its indiscernible merit. For a film that employs many indisputably talented actors, it's quite the shameful accomplishment that every performance is over-the-top and affected with hysterically pretentious theatrics. The costume design, in all its gaudy grandeur, has not the slightest semblance of practicality -- all the knights just lounge around in shiny polished full body armor, while the caricatured buffoon Merlin wizards a meticulously tattered yet pristine jet black robe and nifty platinum skull cap. The production-design is like sets from a cheap stage play. If some trees seem to appear legit, I'm gonna go ahead and just credit nature and God for their surely accidental inclusion within this vulgar vomit. The usually great Alex Thompson's cinematography is all gauzy and unnatural light, with magical moments casting a nauseating "non-diegetic" neon green. At no time do any of the boringly vapid and across-the-board malevolent characters demonstrate a shred of rationality or principal to explain their lack thereof... the same is true for the filmmakers.I've heard the apologist excuse this clumsy pile of drivel because it was supposedly a revolutionary step forward for the fantasy genre in contemporary cinema. However this argument simply cannot hold water, when the fact that "Excalibur" arrived in the immediate wake of fantasy masterpieces like "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Conan The Barbarian" is taken into account. I could go on... but why? John "Borefest" Boorman's irredeemably tedious "Excalibur" is cheap, inane, inept, and flat-out awful.

Eric Stevenson Well, this is, as far as I know, the longest movie ever made based on Arthurian legend. Looking at the back of the box, I realize that it's based on a book called "Le Morte Darthur". I had no idea that Arthurian legend was contained in a single book or at least not as much of it in a book. I guess I'm not that familiar with the legends, but from what I did know, it was interesting to see it all come alive in this movie! Yes, this had everything I knew about King Arthur including the sword and the stone, the round table, Merlin, Morgan le Fey, and Mordred. I got everything I knew about them.The costumes and lighting effects were brilliant in this movie! For a movie named after the weapon, it wasn't entirely about it. Instead, we got everything we know from the classic stories. There wasn't much of an attempt to be elaborate or anything. I especially like Mordred's armor. I guess in that sense, it wasn't really that unique. It didn't offer anything that new to the story, but it didn't need to. It's simply a very fine looking film that holds up. I remember a time when 1981 wasn't that long ago. I loved Patrick Stewart too. ***