La spada magica - Alla ricerca di 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.

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! :-)

I, personally, really enjoy Quest for Camelot. I think it has a very good plot, I love the music, the animation is pretty good, and the characters are likeable. Admittedly, it does have its flaws, and it's no Sleeping Beauty, but then again, what is?

I think many people don't give this and similar movies a chance because they're not Disney. But heck, Pocahontas was by Disney, and it sucked! So, don't judge a movie by its studio. You really should give this movie a try.

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...

This is a film that I have watched several times now with the kids and find myself enjoying it more each time.

Previous comments have compared it unfavourably to Disney but this seems unfair - it is clearly a separate product, darker and more cynical than the works of that other company. The song by dragons Devon and Cornwall - 'Without You'- stands in stark contrast to, say, the sentiments of 'You and Me Together' in Disney's Oliver and Company. Neither could I imagine Ruber, with his particular vein of sarcastic villainy, appearing in the products of that more family centred studio.

The weakest individual moment, for me at least, is anachronistic. Devon and Cornwall sing about their mutual hostility, and their song is animated with some twentieth century props and in-jokes. This is a jarring note in a film which otherwise tries to maintain some sort of historical integrity. It is funny but creates a disruption that is hard to forget. (More acceptable is the 'Do you feel clucky?' line later on)

There has been some criticism of the animation quality, and it does seem to vary. Some of the movements of animals, in particular, seem jumpy at a distance. However balancing out these weaknesses are such scenes as the evocation of a cold morning, when Kayley hears of her father's death, and Ruber's splendid witchcraft scene.

Overall the film suffers from being underwritten - one wishes more time was taken in filling out character and incident before the final attack on Camelot. Cayley and Garrett fall in love too easily, while Devon and Cornwall (delightfully witty and charming creations) have too little to do. And what happens to Merlin? He's reduced to flying a bird. It's a shame as other supporting characters, like the Gryphon and the axe chicken are very well judged, and completely memorable. More unforgivable is the character of King Arthur, who is just bland.

On the plus side, this is still a good film, utterly free of pretension. Ruber's magical creation of his henchman is a highlight, a demoniac sequence that is quite thrilling, a brilliant musical set piece that moves the plot forward, sparking huge suspense. His creations are delightfully original in themselves, frightening and intriguing in equal measure. Watching it again I was reminded of how little of this quality of real wonder appears in another non-Disney animation, Prince of Egypt - a much more favourably received work, and far more earnest in tone.

This Arthurian adventure can be quite revealing in comparison when taken this as an unofficial sequel to The Sword in The Stone, throwing stereotypical Disney values and methods into greater relief. In its own right it is very enjoyable in any case, although it could have been even better with some extended work on the script.