Excalibur

It’s hard to believe that the man who directed one of the best gangster movies of all time, Point Blank (1967) and a classic assault on the male myth in Deliverance (1972) also directed this mind-numbingly awful account of the Arthurian legend. One would be tempted to think that the whole thing is a Monty Pythonesque joke but about the midway point one is forced to acknowledge that it is not so but rather some opaquely idiosyncratic project.

Altjough adapted by Rospo Pallenberg (who also collaborated with Boorman on The Emerald Forest (1985) with which this film bears some broad affinity, a clue to which is the sharing of the colour green) from Malory's 'Morte d'Arthur', most audiences will know enough of the most famous of all English legends to follow the convoluted plot. The plot however is not the problem  - it is Boorman’s (and Pallenberg’s) treatment of it that is.

Its hard to know where to begin although one could save time by saying that nearly everything, bar some lush production values and Alex Thomson’s cinematography, both largely in the latter part, is mis-guidedl. The dialogue borders on the comical at times, the actors, which include the likes of Helen Mirren, Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson along with Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson in the early stage in their careers, seem to have been told to over-act to buggery, which they duly do by flaring their eyeballs and shouting as presumably knights did in ye olden dayes, the music cues beggar belief and as the film progressed more and more towards the fantastic I couldn’t help but expect a space ship to appear and the whole things to transmogrify into Star Wars, a film which Boorman probably would have liked to have directed. Quite surprisingly (or perhaps not) Excalibur has quite a few champions, but unless you're a hard core fan of magical runes, dragon's breath and Stonehenge on a winter's morning, you probably wont be one of them.

FYI: Pallenberg also collaborated with Boorman on the latter’s previous film, the disastrous 1977 Exorcist sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic. 

 

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