एक्सकैलिबर

Excalibur is a truly atmospheric film. It has the ability to take you back to the time it depicts, without using sentimentality or rose tinted spectacles. Having seen the film numerous times, I still get more out of it with every viewing. It certainly seemed to start many careers on the right path and many of the actors are very well known now. My only sadness is that Paul Geoffrey and Nigel Terry, two of the main character actors, seem not to have become such household names. They both stand out in the film and to my mind have made it what it is, brilliant. Great direction, production, photography and music. King Arthur himself would have been proud of it.

This is by far the best Arthurian film offering - sure, sure it gets a bit loopy with the Quest for the Grail, but I'm pretty sure such a Quest would involve some loopiness. The acting is v. good given the material, the atmosphere is strong and the use of Wagner is, at times, inspired. Oh, and there's no Richard Gere looking purty...

Movie that succeeds to be at the same time bad movie and the best adaptation of legend of King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table. For 1981. it's visually fascinating and deserves Best Cinematography Oscar it's nominated for. But however magical and hypnotizing it may be, it's also full of flaws. It's poorly written, story is undeveloped, things just happen without explanation and movie makes rough time jumps without transition. Characters are two-dimensional and occasional attempts to add them some depth are tragicomic. With few exceptions, acting is better left uncommented. When I was a child I was stunned with this movie, but from current perspective, changed by few decades of movie experience, this movie is so hollow that I simply can not turn the blind eye to all its flaws, but still so beautiful that I can not rate it low either.

7/10

it is not easy to say why.and the explanation is the last detail for look for. maybe because it remains the most inspired adaptation of a story to well known.but the cause remains always a must define. and it could be, maybe , the mix of Wagner, kitsch and late romanticism. for acting. and for tension. for the great poetry of image. or , only, for the memories about a fresco about a time as fruit of myths. Excalibur remains unique. and this is the only important thing for define it. as a seductive show. maybe, as an experience. about fascination for an ambiguous past. and refuge in a world who seems out of each form of illusion. or reality.

This is a film that needs to be watched differently from most films. It operates very differently from the more realistic bent that the vast majority of films lend themselves towards and leans very heavily into a much more formalistic approach. It's an effort to bring Romantic painting to life with an operatic feel, and if you can't get into that different style of reality, then the movie's going to just be funny. Buy into the hyper-reality, though, and you have an entertaining 140 minutes ahead of you.

Everything about this film is big. Costumes entail men walking everywhere in full plate armor. Sets are huge and completely impractical. Performances reach for the rafters. The world is filled with magic and the implication of a huge dragon. It's very much of its own style, and the fact that Zach Snyder considers Excalibur his favorite movie makes just so much sense.

It's the traditional Arthurian legend filtered through the crazy mind of John Boorman. It goes beyond the formalistic stylistic approach to the story, but the inclusion of every weird factor of the original myths plays into Boorman's wheelhouse. Merlin using the magic of the dragon to disguise Uther to trick Igraine is a prime example. But Boorman also includes some extra-mythical elements like having Morgana be Mordred's mother and Arthur his father, creating an incestuous relationship that was never there before. It's rather fertile feeding ground for Boorman's insanity, and I'm really glad he used it.

It blows through the Arthurian legend, mostly propelled by Nicol Williamson's awesomely weird performance as Merlin, watching Uther father Arthur, Arthur claim the sword in the stone and rise to become king, the peace that follows, and the dissolution of that peace precipitated by the affair between Guinevere and Lancelot. Alongside is the rise of Morgana, her tutelage under Merlin, and her raising of Mordred. All of this is big and entertaining (if weird and uncomfortable at certain moments), but it's the late introduction of the Grail Quest that kind of derails the latter half of the film for me.

The Grail isn't mentioned until about 90 minutes into the film, and it's just very suddenly dropped in as a very important thing that needs to be found right then. Arthur is sick, the country is sick, and they need something to revive the nation and its king. Suddenly, "Hey, Percival, go find the Holy Grail."

The Grail Quest feels really tacked on. There are some striking visuals like the actual vision of the Grail that Percival has and the image of Percival hanging from the tree because of where the Quest took him, but it's a sudden late introduction that actually doesn't come to fruition. Maybe if the Grail had been introduced earlier in the film it would have worked better, but as it is, it feels like the Grail is in the film because it's a common part of the Arthurian legend and not because there was a compelling reason to include it in this telling.

Overall, though, the film is really quite an experience. Divorced from reality and existing in its own fantasy realm, it creates its own rules of behavior and sticks to them. It's really pretty from beginning to end, well using the Irish countryside (around John Boorman's house) with mise-en-scene that really evokes Romantic paintings. The performances, especially Nicol Williamson's as Merlin, fit well with the material, and it's an entertaining look into another reality that follows different rules from our own.