Quest for Camelot (1998) Reviews

• Nice Variation on Old Legend

  Cylex2001-09-16

  I caught this film on video because the trailer wasn't too good. But it did have Eric Idle voicing Devon so I gave it a chance. I loved it. The dragon stole most of the scenes, but the other characters weren't bad either. Kayley & Garrett made a good couple and it was refreshing to see a romance that wasn't based on looks or riches. I wanted them to be together. Bladebeak was amusing and Aydon (voiced by the excellent Frank Welker) was good to watch. Rubere was deliciously villainous. The weakest characters were Arthur & Merlin but the film wasn't really about them so it didn't matter. The best scenes were set in the Forbidden Forest where we witness all kinds of weird and wonderful flora and fauna. There are good songs (I Stand Alone, Through Your Eyes & On My Father's Wings especially.) I also cried at several points. Ignore the bad press. Watch it. 9/10

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• An underrated good quality cartoon film.

  Mightyzebra2007-08-30

  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! :-)

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• A very,VERY good Arthurian movie

  ja_kitty_712007-09-18

  I was shocked,surprised and flabbergasted by the negative reviews I would see on the web, I thought that this film a very,VERY good Arthurian movie along with Walt Disney's classic "The Sword in The Stone;" the MGM live-action classic "Knights of the Round Table" with Robert Taylor & Ava Gardner; the musical "Camelot" starring Richard Harris & Vanessa Redgrave. This film has everything: a very good story, excellent music, and that's one thing I love in a movie is a very good soundtrack; and an excellent voice casting too. I love Kayley, and her desire to carry on the tradition of her father in the excellent song On My Father's Wings was a great scene in the film. I also love song "The Prayer" too. The song became popular among artists like the Celtic Woman - I don't understand why a popular song would come from a film that people thought it's awful.

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• Heart is in the right place, but flawed...

  Shawn Fumo2002-04-03

  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...

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• Boring

  raven_blood882007-10-11

  Well, I finally saw it. And boy, it was nothing to sneeze at. (**Spoilers**) Now, I tried to give it a chance, I really did. Being a big fan of animated musicals, I tend to enjoy films of this genre. But sadly, the effort was wasted in this misshapen heap of a story. Now, for the positive side, I must say I thought the two-headed dragon was hilarious... Eric Idle and Don Rickles were simply perfect picks for their voices. However, the main characters were bland, and lacked a proper chemistry. Kayley was drastically out of place with the story. Her whole, "I wanna be a warrior" rant reminded me of Taran from "The Black Cauldron." Ladies were not knights, and did not sit with the men at the Round Table. And NO woman dressed like she did at that time. Garrett was the most boring, angsty piece of wood, it hurt. And, to top it all off, the two main characters fell in love in less than a day. (I'm sorry, but even for an animated film, that was way too rushed, considering how they got along in the first place. Ruber, the villain, was a lame, inept villain, who lacked a good motive. It was lame. The singing voices for the characters (not counting Devon and Cornwall (the two-headed dragon), and Ruber (the villain), who did their own singing) were all obviously different. And the songs came out of nowhere. I mean, one minute we have Kayley's dad telling her about Camelot, the next, the knights are parading and singing to Aurthur's castle. Yeah, that *TOTALLY* happens in real life. I know animated musicals have songs, but they're usually better done, and fit in with the storyline. The animation smelled... and I often saw re-used clips about three times over. And the colors were so washed out, it hurt. And the plot... hoo boy! Did these people even try and base it on the book it supposedly originated from? Now, I never read the book, but I read its summary, and the characters are barely anything like this. The plot is weak, watered down, and lame. I know the book was adult, but they could've made a kid-safe version of it. And Arthur and Merlin are in this for all of ten minutes, max. The only *really* catchy song in the film was "If I Didn't Have You", and the only really beautiful song was "The Prayer." This is sad because there were other songs scattered throughout the film. So yeah, this film tried so hard to be a Disney-clone, yet it couldn't hold the candle to other really good non-Disney films, like "The Swan Princess", "Thumbelina", "Anastasia", "Balto", and "Prince of Egypt." Case in point, don't waste your time. It's quite forgettable.

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