The Dragons of Camelot (2014)

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General		Extras
Category	Fantasy	Trailer-Other Eagle releases x 3
Rating
Year Of Production	2014
Running Time	77:00
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Mark L. Lester
Studio Distributor	Eagle Entertainment	Starring	James Nitti Mark Griffin Sandra Darnell Alexandra Evans Craig Ryder Selina Giles Andrew Jarvis
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	?	Music	Chris Cano

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     In Camelot King Arthur is on his death bed. Fearing that his sister, the witch Morgan (Sandra Darnell), is planning to take the kingdom after his death, Arthur gives the sword Excalibur to Galahad (James Nitti) and urges him to seek out the exiled Lancelot and save the kingdom. When Arthur dies Morgan, casting a spell which binds a dragon to do her bidding, seizes Camelot, imprisoning Guinevere (Selina Giles) and Merlin (Andrew Jarvis) in the castle dungeons and sending her soldiers to find and kill Galahad.

     Escaping to the forest Galahad finds other exiled Knights of the Round Table, including Percival (Craig Ryder) and his sister Dindrane (Alexandra Evans), have become bandits. Joining together they track down a dishevelled and drunken Lancelot (Mark Griffin) in a tavern. After various adventures and battles with Morgan’s dragons and her soldiers, the remnants of the group return to Camelot to free the prisoners, to confront Morgan and to secure the legacy of King Arthur.

     The Dragons of Camelot is directed by Mark L. Lester whose career possibly peaked in the mid-1980s with films such as Firestarter (1984) and Commando (1985) although he has worked steadily since. The Dragons of Camelot is silly and cheesy; the dialogue is extremely wooden and chunky and most of the cast, especially Sandra Darnell as Morgan, overact shamelessly. The budget must also have been miniscule. In crowd scenes and fight sequences there don’t ever seem to be more than about 10 people in any shot, the costumes are cheap (no suits of armour here), and horses only appear in a couple of riding shots as all the combat is on foot. Indeed, the fight scenes feature a very jerky hand held camera and rapid intercutting to hide the fighting inadequacies of the cast. I suspect that the majority of the budget went on the CGI dragons which, especially in long and medium shot, do not look too bad. As well, The Dragons of Camelot benefits from being filmed on location in North Wales, as the landscapes look rich and lush and the ruins of Gwrych Castle look good as a backdrop. This is certainly a case where a lot of the budget, such as it is, is up on the screen.

     The Dragons of Camelot is impossible to dislike because it is a film which has a sense of fun and never for a moment takes itself seriously, even when the cast are delivering silly dialogue they know is silly. And it has brave heroes, fair maidens, dastardly wicked villains (I am sure Morgan would have twirled moustaches if she had of been a male), a kingdom in distress, sorcery, fire breathing dragons and true love winning out in the end.

Video

     The Dragons of Camelot is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The IMDb does not provide the original ratio but I suspect it was either 1.78:1 or 1.85:1 as the film does not look cropped.

     The print is sharp and detailed with the greens of the Welsh landscape looking lush and beautiful. Other colours are natural, blacks and shadow detail good. Brightness and contrast is consistent, skin tones natural.

     There was occasional motion blur but no marks.

     There are no subtitles.

     The layer change at 42:05 resulted in a slight pause at a scene change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a choice of English Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 Kbps or English DTS 5.1 at 754 Kbps.

     I listened to sections of both. In general the DTS was sharper both were otherwise similar. Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand. Very few effects occurred in the rears and surrounds even during the crowd or fight scenes; there were occasional dragon fly pasts but it was mostly music. The subwoofer supported the dragon roars and flight, and the music.

     The score by Chris Cano was good and did elevate some scenes more than the acting deserved.

     I did not notice any lip synchronisation issues.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers

     On start-up there were trailers for Unicorn City (2:05), The Culture High (2:24) and Hellion (2:09). The same trailers may also be selected from the menu.

     There is no current Region 1 US release of The Dragons of Camelot and the Region 2 UK version looks to be the same as ours, although I cannot find any reviews.

     The Dragons of Camelot never takes itself seriously, which is just as well as the dialogue is silly and the acting hammy. But the locations in Wales are beautiful, the CGI dragons not too bad and the humour sometimes funny, so if you just smile and go with it the film can be fun.

     The film is rated M for violence. The sword fights are blood and gore free so are unlikely to worry younger viewers. There are a couple of more bloody scenes, such as where a knight is killed by a dragon by having his head bitten, but this is in in longshot and more cartoonish than violent.

     The video and audio are good. Trailers for other films are the only extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall