Review of Excalibur (1981) by Willmarshall — 07 Jul 2017

I have some VERY mixed feelings on Boorman's "Excalibur". On the one hand, the movie is full of poor decisions, chiefest among them some extremely weird pacing, which makes the film feel like it's been cut down from a thousand-page book.

On the other hand, the special effects are excellent, as are many of the performances, and the plot, despite (or perhaps because of) the poor pacing, is oddly compelling, almost dream-like, which in a roundabout way feels sort of perfect in a film about the King Arthur legend.

Apart from Nigel Terry's teenage King Arthur, the film is uniformly well-acted (within the confines of what is admittedly some rather terrible dialogue), although perhaps a bit over-the-top in places, and the film's props, effects and cinematography aren't usually particularly realistic - note the super-shiny armour of the Knights of the Round Table, the green lighting on Excalibur, and so on - but they serve to enhance the film's dreamlike qualities.

Again, the dreamlike almost-but-not-quite rushed pacing of the film deprives the film of a lot of the personal connection we feel to the characters, leaving us observing rather than really becoming invested in what is taking place, but somehow, almost in spite of itself, the film's ending is profoundly emotionally effective, with King Arthur's gritty, brutal final battle with the gold-plated Mordred and his death, together with the almost triumphant scene of Perceval hurling Excalibur back into the lake, in a way beautiful.

So overall, I think one's opinion on "Excalibur" is determined purely by personal preference. You could argue, successfully, whether it is good or bad either way, your opinion determined by whether you find the editing fittingly dreamlike or tedious and exhaustive, and really by whether you find some sort of emotional core to the film as I did.