La espada mágica: En busca de Camelot

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.

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 caught this film on video because the trailer wasn't too good. But it did have Eric Idle voicing Devon so I gave it a chance. I loved it. The dragon stole most of the scenes, but the other characters weren't bad either. Kayley & Garrett made a good couple and it was refreshing to see a romance that wasn't based on looks or riches. I wanted them to be together. Bladebeak was amusing and Aydon (voiced by the excellent Frank Welker) was good to watch. Rubere was deliciously villainous. The weakest characters were Arthur & Merlin but the film wasn't really about them so it didn't matter.

The best scenes were set in the Forbidden Forest where we witness all kinds of weird and wonderful flora and fauna. There are good songs (I Stand Alone, Through Your Eyes & On My Father's Wings especially.) I also cried at several points. Ignore the bad press. Watch it. 9/10

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. :)

I too enjoyed this movie. It isn't flawless, but few movies are. The animation is good, if a little bland in the musical numbers, with exception of the splendid witchcraft scene. As for the songs, they aren't actually that bad. My favourites were "The Prayer", "Looking Through Your Eyes", and "If I didn't have you." The other songs were not as good, but not mind numbingly awful. The biggest problem was the singing voices, they didn't match the voice acting. Celine Dion is a very good singer, but her voice is too powerful for Julianna, but it's good they didn't ask someone like Barbara Streisand, another excellent singer with a too-big voice for the character. Same with Andrea Corr. Another problem was the script, which had its ups and downs. The reasons why some children didn't laugh at the two-headed dragon, which was the best character, is because they wouldn't in a million years have understood the pop culture references, though they were funny. As for the voice talents they were a mixed bag. Jessalyn Gilsig and Cary Elwes started off a little bland, and Gary Oldman relishes his role as the villain, if a little over the top at times. On a positive note, Eric idle and Don Rickles were hilarious, and Jane Seymour made a sincere Julianna. Pierce Brosnan was also an interesting choice, but if I were a director, I wouldn't have picked John Gielgud to voice Merlin, although he would have been good if it was live-action. In conclusion, an above average movie, with a story that started off well, but ran out of steam too early. If I wanted to see it again, I would. 7/10 Bethany Cox