Kaamelott: Premier volet

I am a huge fan of the mini series, and a huge fan of Alexandre Astier. But this film was just horrible.

The series were funny, witty, unpretentious, had excellent rhythm. There were a lot of characters but in a given episode, you'd only have a few.

Now in the movie, you have all those characters, plus many more, and it becomes a boring soup & a pretentious mess. Christian Clavier somehow wanted to be part of this, and he's incredibly irritating as usual with his one trick pony act; it's just sad now. Presumably, each original character has a few lines to say so that nobody would feel left out, but from a story / script / movie perspective, it's just bad.

Now the story itself couldn't be duller. To a large extent, even, it makes no sense. Some elements are even frustrating. It's very hard to relate to anyone. Arthur is a anti hero, and not a likeable one. In a comedy, the anti hero surrounded by idiots was funny. Here though, every character pretty much sucks and it's depressing.

Astier is a musician, so the score was very important to him, but it completely overwhelms the movie in several instances. It makes no sense to play a Hans Zimmer type score in a movie filled with village idiots.

The costumes were completely over the top: again, a distraction.

Overall it feels like the budget was too high. The set of the mini series was limited, and the focus was on the writing and story. Here, you got fancy images, music and costumes that felt completely out of place and sync. Just felt wasteful.

I think I smiled 2-3 times and laughed once or twice, and the rest of the time I was wondering how much they spent on it, and whether they will finance the next installments. I wouldn't.

I think we can all happily just rewatch the series and not try to make an epic hero movie out of the least hero material characters imaginable.

The series is amazing. 10 stars. But the film was quite underwhelming.

Arthur is forced to come back and ends up accepting his role. Basically that is the whole film.

The costumes are ridiculous. In the series they were quite of the time or at least as we think of as of the time. In the film they look like something out of Dr Who (fans will know what I mean).

Definitely don't watch if you haven't watched the TV show because you will not understand otherwise.

I love the serie... but this movie try to tell a story and insert joke here and there, without ever truly committing to the movie format. It dragged some scene and include a backstory for no reason. It is darker than it suppose to be and we exit the theatre wondering 'what did i just watch?". I laughed a few time but as much as would have expected. Some people in the theatre didnt know the serie and left. I dont understand the praise.. It is not bad but not as good as the critics told me. A lighter tone would have helped.

The movie's good but feels like a succession of sometimes oddly cut episodes of the TV show.

Astier slightly missed the transition to cinema by getting trapped by the profusion of characters and the need to have them all -or almost all of them- appear (to appeal to the fanbase?).

Good experience thought, with some really fun moments and some storylines getting picked back up.

First, I must confess that I am a long time fan of Kaamelott. I've seen all the episodes from the TV series more times than I am willing to admit.

The movie strikes the perfect balance between new and old. There are a lot of new characters that are very interesting. The music is excellent. It actually feels like a movie and not just a long episode from the tv show.

If you have never seen an episode of Kaamelott, you will most likely miss some of the jokes, but you still can enjoy the movie.

As a fan, this is a 10/10.