Boorman has always been a director more interested in intellectual themes and the play of symbols than in plot, characterisation, action, drama, or the other perks of commercial cinema. Sometimes, as in Point Blank, this produces a film which is austere yet impressive and resonant; at other times, like Zardoz, the result is unintentionally hilarious and leaves the viewer clueless as to the director's intentions.
Excalibur falls in the middle. It's not powerful epic film-making, and it's not camp nonsense. It's just dull. Most of the action takes place in near-total darkness, so it is almost impossible to follow the plot even if you can work out which of the million variations of the Arthur myth he's trying to tell. Occasionally Helen Mirren's naked body looms out of the night, which may have been nifty when the film was made but now there are websites for that kind of thing.
The cast (mainly not-quite-famous stage actors) don't seem to understand how to put their characters across on film. The cinematography is occasionally pretty, but generally dysfunctional since it fails to serve the needs of plot and character. Even the story itself is poor, demonstrating that the legend of Arthur is less a coherent narrative and more a string of sometimes contradictory events conflating numerous historical figures and folk tales.
The film has no discernible intellectual, social or political message, and though it promises the chance to see a record of some good stage actors, the expected performances never materialise through the darkness and mud. The story of Arthur has been presented so many times it's almost impossible to do anything original other than be worse than whatever has come before (as the recent King Arthur demonstrated). Watch Disney's The Sword and the Stone instead.
Excalibur falls in the middle. It's not powerful epic film-making, and it's not camp nonsense. It's just dull. Most of the action takes place in near-total darkness, so it is almost impossible to follow the plot even if you can work out which of the million variations of the Arthur myth he's trying to tell. Occasionally Helen Mirren's naked body looms out of the night, which may have been nifty when the film was made but now there are websites for that kind of thing.
The cast (mainly not-quite-famous stage actors) don't seem to understand how to put their characters across on film. The cinematography is occasionally pretty, but generally dysfunctional since it fails to serve the needs of plot and character. Even the story itself is poor, demonstrating that the legend of Arthur is less a coherent narrative and more a string of sometimes contradictory events conflating numerous historical figures and folk tales.
The film has no discernible intellectual, social or political message, and though it promises the chance to see a record of some good stage actors, the expected performances never materialise through the darkness and mud. The story of Arthur has been presented so many times it's almost impossible to do anything original other than be worse than whatever has come before (as the recent King Arthur demonstrated). Watch Disney's The Sword and the Stone instead.