Review of Quest for Camelot (1998) by Victoria P — 02 May 2008

Having scored a success with SPACE JAM, Warner Brothers seemed to have a chance against Disney as a rival animation studio. But their 1998 fantasy-musical QUEST FOR CAMELOT proved to be disastrous, both critically and financially.

Despite containing a talented ensemble of actors and a plucky female protagonist, there are too many other things working against the overall film. The animation is mediocre at best (with very obvious, out-of-place computer generated shots), and the songs, while nowhere nearly as bad as they've been made out to be, don't do much to advance things.

The biggest problem with QUEST FOR CAMELOT, though, is that it tries too hard to be a funny, Disney-like comedy, and it shows from the needless animal sidekicks (although one of them, a two-headed dragon voiced by Eric Idle and Don Rickles, does manage to emerge as fairly memorable).

Regrettably, its bloated attempts backfire, rendering the overall film as little more than a curious failure. Dreamworks' PRINCE OF EGYPT, released that same year, proved to be a far better competitor for Disney; Warner Brothers' subsequent attempts only resulted in far worse disasters, even though one of them, THE IRON GIANT, did go on to be a critically acclaimed cult classic.