Das magische Schwert - Die Legende von Camelot

I know I gave this movie a higher rating then it probably deserves. Well lets just say this movie is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. I actually really like it. I see its faults and still don't care. I think I was seven when this came out but I really don't think I seen it till a bit later in life. I enjoyed the characters, for the most part the songs,the plot, and the world that was created. I eventually plan to buy this movie but it's one that can wait. Which shows that I don't love it, just find it to be one of the better kids movies. Or put it this way. An old kids movie that wasn't made by Disney that I consider to be good. :)

The wonderful, classic legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table has never been properly handled as a feature film. Even "Excalibur" seemed forced, and perhaps the only truly enjoyable features have been gentle comedies like Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" and of course "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" which throw the technical mythology out the window and try to make what's left fun. Eric Idle starred in that latter entry, and he stars here, as one-half of a fairly well-animated, somewhat badly-designed, talking dragon. With Don Rickles' help he becomes a comic sidekick, but the script doesn't let either of them be all that funny, and the animation mixes the beautiful and awful with a disturbing shot-to-shot tickertape rhythm. About 1/4th of the animators here don't seem to know how to animate convincingly, and those who do have to struggle not to let the movie fall down around them. But the animation is still the best part of this woefully misconceived hybrid of randomly-scattered Camelot legend and F-grade science fiction. The science-fiction takes over, sadly. Consider the red-armored, action figure of a villain (played by Gary Oldman, in yet another bad career move). I can't decide if he's Riffraff from Rocky Horror, or Ade Edmonson from the Young Ones. It matters little. Caring not for the great legend sitting right under their feet, the umpteen writers turn out sub-Disney drivel about robots, walking trees, a laughable CGI version of the rock monster from the "Never-Ending Story," and a talking chicken with a hatchet for a beak. Lovely. I'm sure Sir Thomas Malory wanted to put these elements in his "Morte D'Arthur," he simply wasn't clever enough to think of them, right? Who needs Lancelot and Galahad when you've got Lionel and Bladebeak? And does anyone really want Celine Dion Eurovision Song Contest-esque material sprinkled in every few minutes? Supposedly sung by the "characters" of what story there is, but they rarely move their lips to it, so the work is not particularly convincing. An all-star cast is wasted (Sir John Gielgud, for chrissake!), as is the time of anyone watching this confused "Black Cauldron"-esque collage of scenes from other movies. The design looks like Don Bluth traced by Wang, and the entire enterprise made me slightly ill. What a waste of talent. I want to hurt this movie.

I am going to agree with the majority of the other posters here. There is a lot of good elements in this movie, but it is all put together as much more of a cliche then it had to be.

It seemed like there were too many singing scenes and they were too abrupt and not integrated into everything. Every time one started, I couldn't wait for it to be over so we could get back to the story. And as others mentioned, the singing voices were too different from that of the characters themselves. Imagine if they had used the time during the songs to actually give more plot and character development.

Everyone seemed too two-dimensional. As someone else pointed out, how did the bad guy even get to the round table in the first place? He was charming in his own way, but too cookie-cutter.

As others mentioned, the animation is very hit-or-miss. The backgrounds and overall mood are very well done, but a lot of the characters were just not animated well, the hawk was frequently deformed, etc. It stood out badly due to the quality of everything around it. Take a look at something like Princess Mononoke to see characters animated on a limited budget that meshes much better with everything else, with a lot more visual style.

It seems like it would have a feminist bent, but then she is still rescued most of the time, and the dress scene at the end seems especially absurd in the context of everything else.

Some of the comedy elements were cute, but I did dislike all of the movie references and everything. Since everything else seems centered in the world, it seems out of place.

Like the Black Cauldron, this was an OK movie that could have been a lot better. But at least BC didn't have all that singing. Sword in the Stone also worked a lot better while being in a similar vein.

If you want an American animated movie that is really consistent with its own world, animated well, has good characters, etc. check out the Secret of Nimh. You can get it really cheap on DVD now. Seeing Quest for Camelot the day after Nimh, there really is no comparison...

I, personally, really enjoy Quest for Camelot. I think it has a very good plot, I love the music, the animation is pretty good, and the characters are likeable. Admittedly, it does have its flaws, and it's no Sleeping Beauty, but then again, what is?

I think many people don't give this and similar movies a chance because they're not Disney. But heck, Pocahontas was by Disney, and it sucked! So, don't judge a movie by its studio. You really should give this movie a try.

Back in the days when there is no such Oscar category as "The Best Animated Feature of the Year" , animations were for family use only. It's obvious that by 2001, adult themed animations began running off readily. Looking at the year 1998, alongside of Antz, Mulan, and Toy Story 2 ; Quest for Camelot was another successful blockbuster hit in the animation genre.

It's an adaptation to Vera Chapman's novel "The King's Damosel", the writer of which is the founder of the J.R.R. Tolkien Society of Great Britain. Though, most fun and joyful parts of the novel are missing in this film. The basic formula of creating a Swashbuckler Adventure out of a heroic journey story has been applied again just like The Mummy, Robin Hood, Indiana Jones, Conan the Barbarian and so on.

What's so good and staying within living memory? 1/First of all, it's very entertaining for everyone who like Swashbucklers. Must be rated "E". 2/A sense of Tim Burton style singing dialogues. 3/All the cruel and bloodthirsty fantasy world creatures are pleasant looking: Dragons, Drakels, Ogres, and the very special Two-Headed Dragon. 4/The Dark Jungle with Necromancer Trees. 5/The lost sword of Excalibur. 6/The legend of the Three Circles. 7/The story is centring on a girl who wants to be a knight! Praise for Hayao Miyazaki 8/The first time when Garrett and Kayley meet the two-headed dragon: -Garrett:What are you? -Dragon:We're the reason cousins shouldn't marry. 9/The back story of a blind farmer, and his success story becoming a knight 10/The blind farmer's silver winged falcon, and all the scenes that it's fighting with either dragons or ogres.

What's not to like and to forget? 1/The overall animation quality is only as good as a computer game except the music. 2/Some scenes and sequences are giving homage to Star Wars, Indiana Jones and even the Taxi Driver; and those homages are stomach aching. 3/King Arthur is very weak, he is half the size of Merlin and shorter than Kayley 4/Merlin is not the Merlin as we know him, he's afraid to cast spells, and not able to protect Arthur's castle 5/The moment when King Arthur grabs the Excalibur from the stone, he seems like a 4-year-old kid pretending that he's He-Man and the people around him are the Masters of Universe 6/The fact that King Arthur is Pierce Brosnan's worst voice acting ever 7/Character development and back stories of the characters are very weak except Garrett's character 8/Visual Effects are awful 9/Over 350 animators have worked to create this animation, but it's still not "animating" what needs to be animated, 'cause the action sequences and the human movements/reflexes are dreadful 10/Sound Effects are not synchronized properly

Give it a shot, this is at least worth watching, catch it on Youtube.