Review of Excalibur (1981) by Naische F — 17 Feb 2009

Excellent directorial effort from John Boorman ('Deliverance', 'Zardoz', 'Exorcist II', etc.) about the trials and tribulations of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable with all the standard battles and wizardry. This covers a lot of ground in terms of the legend of King Arthur, the sword of Excalibur, The Lady of the Lake, Merlin the Wizard, Lancelot the Knight, the Holy Grail legend and many more.

The movie is of epical proportions and vast legends. Wonderful direction and screenplay. The tension is always fresh and the film keeps its momentum. There is a lot of weirdness in the air and the adult themes certainly help from sinking this feature into some immature teenage mess (no wonder some scenes haunted me to this day when I caught this as a kid...). However, I did feel that the film did lose some of its charm in the middle when it got too normal. But thankfully, we were saved once all the weirdness resumed and treated to some very bizarre events.

We get to enjoy some very early too work too from Patrick 'Picard' Stewart, Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne and especially Hellen Mirren as an evil sorceress.

Definitely recommended to fans of middle-ages fantasy. A must for fans for swords and action! It is unfortunate that this was released in HD format and not BluRay...