re: Excalibur (1981)...Nostalgia vs. objectivity

Excalibur is a movie that I really enjoy because it is unapologetic fantasy, and there were few movies like that at the time.

These days fantasy is in style. Back then, it was a real risk. You had to assume that the audience was going to "get it." Excalibur is a bold movie for that reason.

Objectively, this is a three out of four stars movie. It is solid. It holds up well over time. In my opinion, this is the best King Arthur movie because it focuses on the chivalric ideal of Arthur and the magic of Merlin as opposed to the "gritty, realistic" attempts of later Arthur movies.

Where the movie suffers: the story is disjointed and time rushes by. Its timeline is huge for a movie of its length. You don't really get a sense that scene A influences scene B very much in this movie, and it makes you wonder about the motivations of some characters, and how they feel what they feel for each other. The script doesn't do a great job of building relationships between characters.

Where the movie soars: The embrace of ideals. The gutsy way in which Merlin is weirdly portrayed. Helen Mirren is a fantastic villain. Even the dude who plays Mordred is a real bastard. You HATE that guy. There is sincerity in the acting and the directing. There are touching moments in this movie, like the scene where King Arthur retrieves Excalibur from Guinevere at the Abbey, or when Percival tells Uriens how he almost had the Grail.

If you think this movie is great, you're not alone. It deserves to be remembered and watched. I sincerely wish another King Arthur movie gets made in this vein. I want magic spells, and Grail quests, and watery tarts distributing swords. You can tell that the people who made this movie really loved doing it.