Excalibur
User Comments

07 January 2001

Carlo,

I would like to congratulate you on your review of Excalibur. You review is EXTREMELY accurate, and very funny. In fact, my only complaint was that you let the film off maybe a little TOO easily!

Please find below my own review of Excalibur.

Regards,
Gavin M.

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Excalibur

Where do I begin. On pressing play on my DVD, I must admit, the first thing I noticed was that the voices appeared very obviously dubbed (sometimes out of time with the video image of the actor speaking the words). This was very discomferting, and set a cheap, poor, horrible feel about the produciton of the movie. The colours were blurry, the images soft, but that's ok, It's not like DVD is all about excellent quality images and sound...

The plot. This movie is about the legendary Excalibur. I think. To be honest, I don't konw what this movie is about, and if it weren't for the title of the movie, I wouldn't have a CLUE what is going on. The scenes seem somewhat disjointed, and don't appear to flow in the way a normal movie does. I've found that in "normal" movies, each scene appears on a "as it happens" basis. Allow me to detail this slightly. In a normal movie, each scene follows the next, continuing on, and building on what is called a "plot"! This, I feel is the small overlook in Excalibur. It lacks a plot. This is rather worrying, considering the legend has already been TOLD, and the creators of the movie didn't even have to THINK of the plot. As far as I can make it, each scene has absolutely nothing to do with the scene before, or after, and to be perfectly honest, I have NO idea what's going on.

Each scene is very hard to understand, people scream when they are talking, the acting is absolutely atrocious, and I'm not too sure why the scenes are so amazingly unrealistic.

Sure, maybe I'm spoilt, with all this 'new technology' these days, movies in which you can actually follow a plot, and where you can understand what is going on, but I guess it's just the CONSISTENCY of this movie that amazes me. The consistant, reliable, never failing HORRIBLENESS of this film.

My conclusion?

Excalibur without ANY doubt whatsoever, is THE worst movie I have EVER seen in my entire existance on this earth. May GOD help me that I never see such an APPALLING movie in my life again.

Then you may wish to avoid Highlander: Endgame. Thanks for your comment.

–Carlo

28 January 2001

After reading your commentary, it is apparent you are definitely watching Excalibur with today's analytical approach. This movie approached the masses to entertain with mild effort on education of the mythos. At one point in time you are tearing apart the speaking and acting ability of the players. If you would use some understanding that the era the movie is referring to the language was very much different than ours. The boisterous connotations were an everyday speach for the time. The intensity of living then was hard on the people. Showing the difficulty to be powerful in a time without power was the strive for anyone of that era. I do agree with some of your ideas, but rather than use your opinion to justify your statements, look at each movie with its intended goal and where it is coming from. The movie was created in 1980-81. It is now 20 years later and you are treating it as though it was released just a few months ago.

Thank you for listening.

Chad S.

February 07, 2001

Chad,

Thanks for your e-mail. Believe it or not, you are advocating the same approach I do when critiquing a film. I firmly believe in judging a film according to the goals it sets for itself (provided that the goals themselves are not objectionable or somehow unworthy), in the context of when the film was released, and in the context of the period the story is set in.

I have just re-read my review, and I don't believe I have failed to do that. In fact, I'm not sure where I criticized the actors' speech anywhere except to say that Nicol Williamson occasionally sounded like a Monty Python character, which was a comment intended to amuse more than to skewer. I didn't deny anywhere that living in the 5th or 6th century was hard.

I don't believe my complaint about the confusion of the plot and the unexplained motivations of the characters is anachronistic. Different ethics and worldviews may be in effect in different time periods, but good storytelling means conveying all that and touching on what we all have in common as human beings–which is not time-dependent. In Gladiator, for example, Maximus embodies Aurelian stoic virtue... he does things and bears the cost because it is virtuous to do so. Stoic philosophy is not exactly in vogue today, but I understood and believed the character. In contrast, were I not already familiar with the legend of King Arthur, I would have understood very little about the characters in Excalibur... not that I thought Excalibur was a terrible film.

With regard to your comment suggesting that I not use my own opinions to justify my statements... what else shall I use? I believe that the pretense of objectivity in film criticism is pointless and dishonest. The act of viewing and reacting to a film is inherently a subjective experience. If a horror film doesn't horrify you or if a comedy doesn't make you laugh, it won't work for you, regardless of how it meets any objective standard.

Of course, all critical reviews intellectualize the movie-watching experience–that's what they're written to do. But there are different approaches. I prefer to begin with the subjective reaction. I walk out of a movie feeling like a movie worked or didn't work. Then the process of figuring out the reasons for my subjective responses begins. While doing so, sometimes pieces of the film that were confusing or seemed superficial suddenly make sense, and sometimes the reverse is true, as things that I didn't pay much attention to suddenly stick out as problems. I try to lay out the reasons for my subjective responses as best I can. If I am successful, then readers can decide for themselves whether they think they would agree with me or not.

The reverse approach, which is to start by intellectualizing the film first in order to reach a "correct" quantification of a film's value, is less interesting. Even if the writer has some keen insights, the overall approach is disingenuous.

Hope you visit AboutFilm again!

Regards,
Carlo

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