Il mistero del principe Valiant

For fans of Harold Foster's Prince Valiant it is a bit disappointing, but very suitable for children. Despite his homo haircut the original Valiant is very masculine, philosophical, and smart. He does not perform foolish acts or show inability with the sword, ever. In the movie he looks too young, shy, messy and foolish. The cast is inadequate, the camera trembles and the fight scenes are unacceptable... but again, not for the children, there are nice places to be viewed causing the correct time effect. There are not enough elements to make a good movie, lacks of art direction, continuity, actor performance and specially edition. The movie was pretty bad edited. Beside the gorgeous naked back of the princess coming out of the bad, the castles, the open air scenes make a very pleasant environment worth to be seen. Ron Pearlman's performance is great as usual but do not save the picture. Maybe i would like too much to see this movie under the view of Ridley Scott, stronger characters, something more close to the original personality and the meaning of Prinz Eisenherz.

Beautiful sets, great costumes and makeup.

Run of the mill script. Mediocre acting.

Bad special effects and stunts,and bad film-editing.

The special effects were truly terrible. Just stop-the-movie awful. Alligators that don't move and clearly are not alive. One alligator, clad in plate mail (huh?), shoots vertically out of the water into the air and descends down onto the stonework beside the water, where it doesn't move -while characters run about, pretending to be fearful of the clearly-lifeless, unmoving armor-clad alligator.

And lots of characters swinging Tarzan-like on ropes, slamming feet first into the villains. Except the actors are clearly hanging on ropes being moved by an overhead crane. And the ropes move slowly, as if there was great concern on the set about hurting the actors. In these scenes the villain conveniently stands in one spot until the slow-swinging good guy finally collides with him. This isn't a one-time screw-up; the slow-swinging Tarzan-bit happens over and over again.

The film editing is bad enough that it makes it hard to follow the story at spots. And the stunts and special effects kept blowing up the suspension of disbelief.

There is plenty of no-brainer action, though, and high production values on the sets and costumes. This could have been fun if it was better made.

Spectacular adventure with a lot of colorful pageantry and old-fashioned action , concerning on King Arthur and Prince Valiant , though the movie falls short . It packs a non-sense blending of joky modern dialog and Dark Ages action , as the screenwriters don't get the appropriate touch . The whole cast is far too distinguished to be appearing in this sort of caricature of Medieval legends . It deals with King Arthur who governs in the legendary citadel that is Camelot . His Knights of the Round Table commit acts of derring-do and spend their spare time jousting and enjoying feasts . There young orphaned Valiant (chubby Stephen Moyer) is the squire to Sir Gawain (the same director Anthony Hickox) , one of King Arthur's (Edward Fox who steals the acting honours) knights . He is given the task of escorting princess Ilene (Katherine Heigl who is inappropriate here , holding an excessive ironic tone) to her home in Wales and naturally the young twosome fall in love . Meantime , the sword Excalibur has been robbed by Viking king usurper (Udo Kier) , an evil tyrant , and villainous leader Thagnar (Thomas Kretschmann). Then Ilene gets kidnapped and it's up to Prince Valiant to rescue both Ilene and Excalibur . As young Valiant set off to save princess away from risks and of course rides into it . As Valiant brushes aside bangs and journeys to Thule to look for his lover . There Valiant along with a group of outlaws (Warwick Davis , Ron Perlman) attack the Viking stronghold .

This is a Medieval tale with adventures , full-bloodied action , unspeakable dialog , villainy , terrific jousting , romance and heroism in the grandeur of Scope although in television set loses splendor . The movie displays breathtaking battles , being ambitious in scope with epic confrontation and a striking final climax for a mortal duel . Handsome story , being regularly written and contains some awkward narrative elements . Excellent settings , monumental castles ,outdoors and tournaments or jousts are well staged . However this spectacular film never takes off as it should despite pomp and circumstance showed , so you'll be excited and embarrassed alternately . In any case , filmmaker does some breathtaking set pieces and the attack of a Viking castle colorful and vividly thrilling . This is the classic story of romantic adventure come to life enriched by glamorous color and impressive battles . Wooden protagonist duo , Stephen Moyer and Katherine Heigl , both of whom future TV stars with ¨True Blood¨ and Grey's anatomy¨, respectively . Supporting cast is frankly good though wasted , employing such notorious players and not building them roles with which to make a considerable impact , as the screenplay never give them a chance , there appears great stars as Edward Fox , Ron Perlman , Joanna Lumley as Morgana Le Fey , Walter Gotell's last final and Thomas Kretschmann who wields an ax with vigour . The movie was re-cut by the German producers, while the director was away on Christmas vacation. They wouldn't fly him back to Germany to finish the film. Four key scenes setting up its humorous tone and all religious aspects were removed.

This is another attempt to literally transfer a comic-strip about the Arthurian saga to the screen , the first and the best was ¨Prince Valiant¨(1954) by Henry Hathaway with Robert Wagner , Janet Leigh , Victor McLagen , Donald Crisp , Sterling Hayden and Debra Paget . Other movies on the matter of legends of Arthur resulted to be : (1953) the classic ¨Knights of the Round Table¨ (by Richard Thorpe) , the musical ¨Camelot¨ (Joshua Logan), the fantastic ¨Excalibur¨ (John Boorman) , ¨First Knight¨ (Jerry Zucker) and recently ¨King Arthur¨ (Antoine Fuqua) . The picture will appeal to aficionados with chivalric ideals and epic movies fans , it is a passable production that will lose much on small television screen .

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I liked the panoramic artwork which is very like the painstakingly done quarter of a quarter broadsheet spread frames of the syndicated Sunday comics supplements of the '50s. The special effect used to make those artworks seem to melt into reality is awesome. This is rarely, if ever, done now because of economies of print production and advertising. That, by the way is one of the reasons, the cartoonist responsible for the hugely popular Calvin and Hobbes, quit making the offbeat funny series.

The Valiant here is a very competent knight unlike the one portrayed by Robert Wagner in the 1954 film who was nothing short of a bumbling fool who managed to have accidents just when he seemed to be getting the upper hand (e.g. losing his hold on a cliff as he was espying the traitorous transactions of the Black Knight with Norse marauders). Only the superb acting of James Mason as the villainous Black Knight made that older version interesting.

The fight scenes in this Prince Valiant were well executed. Kudos to the arms master for the handsome suits of armor and weapons.

The actress who portrayed Princess Ilene is stunning.

After seeing the somewhat visually overwhelming Lord of the Rings trilogy, this was a pretty decent fantasy film to watch. Whilst most of the characters were pretty generic, some were good to watch, especially Prince Valiant. The violence was pretty tame, although this is not really a problem, as most of it looks realistic for the times that the story is set in, as does the armour and weapons, aside from maybe Excalibur. The special effects are slightly cheesy, but all the same they didn't really damage the story. You could kind of tell what the ending was going to be, but the story flowed well. Overall, a good movie to watch.