DVD Review: Excalibur
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that this is no bedtime-fairy tale. Sex, gore, and death are fairly explicit in this version of the Arthur story, with bare breasts and buttocks especially in the Lancelot-Guinevere affair. Violence in combat includes impalings, sword- and axe-thrusts, throat slashings, beheadings, and a near-drowning, though the edge is taken off by the old-fashioned special effects. A matricide by strangulation. Nightmare imagery of rotting corpses dead in their armor. Christianity -- at least a Dark Ages brand of it -- is treated respectfully.
- Families can talk about the centuries-old appeal of the story of King Arthur. How does this version compare to others?
- How does the violence in this movie compare to more modern movies? Is it less intense because it's less sophisticated?
- How does the period clothing and setting affect the way the sex is depicted, if at all? Does it seem less realistic than if it were depicted in a modern setting? Or more shocking? Romantic?
In the Dark-Age British Isles, ageless wizard Merlin (Nicol Williamson) gives warlord Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne) the invincible sword Excalibur, forged at the dawn of time, a weapon-symbol to unite the squabbling fiefdoms. Pendragon makes peace with his main rival, only to grow obsessed with the man's wife, and he resumes fighting -- over her. The wizard casts a spell that grants Pendragon's lusts, on the condition Merlin take custody of the child that results. He is Arthur (Nigel Terry), raised ignorant of his royalty, a humble squire in a noble knight's family. Arthur accidentally proves his right to the throne by pulling Excalibur from the stone in which a dying Pendragon embedded it. Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table build a kingdom and of peace and prosperity, until his treacherous half-sister Morgana (Helen Mirrren) and a forbidden love affair between Queen Guinevere (Cherie Lunghi) and champion knight Lancelot (Nicolas Clay) bring evil and unrest upon the land.
The epic of Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin and Lancelot has been done so often, in print and on film (even as a Broadway musical and a devastating spoof) that filmmaker John Boorman must have decided not to waste time/dialogue evoking the iconic characters as real people. Only Merlin, a capering, trickster-like creature (providing the lone comic relief) has a personality; the rest of the cast (such distinctive actors as Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, and Gabriel Byrne, anonymously encased in armor) are as flat as figures in a tapestry, perhaps intentionally so. Emphasis is instead on the Celtic natural-world backdrop -- the mythic, emerald-green Irish shooting locations -- and a medieval mindset of brutal violence, might making right, and paganism (just barely) surrendering to Christianity. Don't expect EXCALIBUR to be a modern "thrill ride" action epic crowd pleaser, but what such a saga would look like if some bard from, oh, 1100 A.D. or so, hopped into a time machine to go to film school.
King Arthur
First Knight
The Sword in the Stone
Quest for Camelot
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