Quest for 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.

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

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 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. :)

Genre: Cartoon, Camelot, Adventure with female knight in training.

Main characters: Kayley, Garret, Devon and Cornwall.

Actors: Lots of famous ones here! There is Cary Elwes (Garret), Eric Idle (Devon), Gary Oldman (Ruber), Jane Seymour (Juliana), Don Rickles (Cornwall), Pierce Brosnan (King Arthur), John Gielgud (Merlin).

What happens: Kayley is the daughter of Sir Lionel, one of the knights at the Round Table. The young girl dreams of following in her father's footsteps as a knight. Then, disaster strikes. Lionel is killed :-( and Kayley as well as others mourn for him. Kayley dreams on of becoming a knight...

My thoughts: This film had good potential. It had good animation, good, heartwarming songs, good characters and lots of good actors. They released it and (on IMDb especially) it sort of flopped like a deflated balloon. What happened?

Well, I don't know personally. I suppose a lot of people don't like this film for a number of reasons. Yes, the film isn't perfect, but it's CERTAINLY enjoyable and good to watch! It's also good for the children, they are likely to enjoy at least one aspect of the film and want to watch on (just like me when I was younger). They may enjoy the songs, they may enjoy the actors, they may enjoy the characters or the excitement, or they may enjoy the humour. They are most likely NOT to be disappointed.

Adults are most likely to like the actors. Monty Python fans will hopefully not be disappointed by the performance of Eric Idle. Also here is Jane Seymour (but not Henry the Eighth's wife OBVIOUSLY! :-) )

Why this film has gone down so badly is a mystery to me. I hope those of you who have never watched it before will enjoy it as much as I do.

Recommended to: Families who like cartoon films, people who like any of the actors I mentioned earlier and people who just like the sound of the film in general - enjoy! :-)