BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Animation	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	82:29 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Frederik Du Chau
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Jessalyn Gilsig Carey Elwes Gary Oldman Pierce Brosnan Eric Idle Don Rickles Jane Seymour Gabriel Byrne Sir John Gielgud
Case	Snapper
RRP	$34.95	Music	Patrick Doyle

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) Portuguese (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) Dutch (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	No
Subtitles	Arabic Spanish German Romanian Bulgarian English	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Set in the time of King Arthur, Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig) is the daughter of Sir Lionel (Gabriel Byrne), a knight of the Round Table. Sir Lionel is slain by the evil knight Ruber (Gary Oldman) who is banished from the Round Table. Cue triumphant music reminiscent of The Lion King. Years pass, and Kayley grows into a young woman. Ruber returns and attempts to steal the sword Excalibur, but fails, the sword falling into the Forbidden Forest.

    Mula....err, Kayley needs to enter the Forbidden Forest to rescue the sword and save the kingdom. She bumps into Garrett (Corey Elwes) who guides her along the way. I really must say that the characterization of Kayley is very confusing. On the one hand, she is painted as a heroine, and on the other, she really does do some annoyingly stupid things. She seems to continually vacillate between heroine and damsel-in-distress. Perhaps the fact that four different screenwriters worked on this script has something to do with this inconsistency. Anyhow, to add tension to the search for Excalibur, Ruber and his minions follow into the Forbidden Forest and so it becomes a race against time to find and return the sword. Along the way, we pick up the obligatory comedic duo, Timon and Pum...err Devon (Eric Idle) and Cornwall (Don Rickles).

    The quality of the animation of this feature is variable, but quite mediocre by current standards. There are numerous very jerky pans and the Ogre, rendered as a 3D model, simply does not sit right amidst the rest of the 2D animation. It looks like something you would expect to watch on a Saturday morning on TV rather than high-quality motion picture standard animation. And why oh why do villains have to sing songs - they invariably do so badly. In this case, Gary Oldman's song is simply pitiful.

Video

    The transfer was very clear and very sharp throughout. Being animation, shadow detail is not relevant to this transfer, but there was certainly no low level noise in the darker areas of the image.

    The colours were a highlight of this transfer. They were crisp, clear and vibrant. Importantly, they remained consistent throughout the entire length of the movie, with no variability noted in saturation at any point. Despite the vibrant nature of the colour in this transfer, colour bleeding was not a problem at all..

    MPEG artefacts were just barely visible during some of the fade-ins and fade-outs, but were not at all distracting. There were no film-to-video artefacts at all, and fundamentally no film artefacts, either.

    The subtitles listed on the packaging of this DVD are incorrect - the actual subtitles on this DVD are Arabic, Spanish, German, Romanian, Bulgarian and English.

Audio

    Dialogue was completely clear and very easy to understand - as is to be expected from a soundtrack created totally artificially as is the case with animation.

    There were no audio sync problems. Having said that, some of the lip animation left a little to be desired, with insufficient mouth movements to totally account for the words spoken.

    The score by Patrick Doyle with song contributions by David Foster and Carole Bayer Sager was generally superb, and without this excellent score this movie would have been very ordinary indeed. The music is alternately sweet, sad, inspiring and dramatic, and beautifully accompanies the on-screen action. The only low point is Ruber's song which borders on the farcical.

    The surround channels were nicely utilized by the music and also by the special effects to create an enveloping soundfield. This had the effect of drawing you nicely into this movie.

    The subwoofer was frequently used to support the music and occasionally to support the sound effects. It placed a very nice bottom end onto the soundtrack, markedly strengthening its impact.

Menu

• Production Featurettes x2
• Pencil Sketches
• Animation Tests
• Music Video-I Stand Alone-Steve Perry
• 10 Theatrical Trailers
• Isolated Music Score

    The video quality is excellent.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    The extras are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
14th February 2000