the audience applauded

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Movie that succeeds to be at the same time bad movie and the best adaptation of legend of King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table. For 1981. it's visually fascinating and deserves Best Cinematography Oscar it's nominated for. But however magical and hypnotizing it may be, it's also full of flaws. It's poorly written, story is undeveloped, things just happen without explanation and movie makes rough time jumps without transition. Characters are two-dimensional and occasional attempts to add them some depth are tragicomic. With few exceptions, acting is better left uncommented. When I was a child I was stunned with this movie, but from current perspective, changed by few decades of movie experience, this movie is so hollow that I simply can not turn the blind eye to all its flaws, but still so beautiful that I can not rate it low either.7/10

Excalibur is majestic 80s cheese: great looking production, fever dream-like visuals, well-told & sincere melodramatics, acting that ranges from silly to downright awful (I'm looking at you, Merlin), and broadly Shakespearean dialogue. With more in common with Game of Thrones than Sword in the Stone, it's probably the most mature and brutal of all the Arthurian legends, and it just plain works.

I was recently watching a Sherlock Holmes movie from the 70s on one of those TV channels devoted to old movies, and my wife walked in, watched about a minute of it and said "I'm pretty sure the guy playing Sherlock is the same actor who played Merlin in Excalibur". And of course, she was right. She loved Excalibur so much back in the 80s that she bought a framed copy of the movie poster which hangs proudly in our living room.So that observation led us to dig out our DVD of Excalibur and watch it for the first time in decades. And you know what? It still holds up. You can tell by some of the hairstyles, effects and other details that it was made in the 1980s, but overall this movie has aged remarkably well. And a lot of the actors who were unknowns (at least to us) back then have become household names in the years since (Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart).Now, one could certainly make the argument that this film is way over the top in nearly every aspect. The actors chew so much scenery that you can almost hear the director off screen yelling "More! Bigger! Sell it!" Everyone wears shiny armor all the time, the good guys are incredibly good and the bad guys are incredibly evil. And then there's the soundtrack that uses a ton of Wagner and the O Fortuna section of Carmina Burana no less than three times. But it's all fitting for a serious film about the Arthurian legends. If the scene towards the end where Arthur, recently healed by the holy grail, rides out with his knights and brings the land back to life while O Fortuna blares in the background doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you might be dead.Balancing out all this seriousness to some degree is the character of Merlin (played wonderfully by Nicol Williamson), who has a few wicked one-liners and adds a much-needed dose of subtle humor to nearly every scene he's in.Many of the actors do a remarkable job of portraying their characters all the way from youth to old age. It's almost hard to believe that it's Nigel Terry playing both the young Arthur who acts as a squire for his brother at a joust early in the film and the elderly, gray-haired Arthur in the climactic battle.Another reviewer mentioned that this film came out just a few years after Monty Python's Holy Grail movie (which I also love) making Excalibur play almost like an anti-parody, with many nearly identical scenes done with deadly earnestness. Well...of course the movies are going to have similar scenes - they're both based on the same legends. The Pythons just took it in a comedic direction while Boorman played it mostly straight.All in all, this will probably always be my favorite King Arthur movie. Before the Lord of the Rings movies came along, this was the best epic fantasy film I'd ever seen. And it's still one of the best.

... after all she witnesses what amounts to the rape of her own mother, and then sees the product of that rape inherit a kingdom (Nigel Terry as Arthur Pendragon). Of course she wants revenge, and justice in the most ironic way for what happened to her mother. Let me explain.Uther Pendragon has peace, has his throne, has a truce with the duke of Cornwall. At a dinner celebrating the truce, Cornwall shows off his beautiful wife, Igrayne. Uther ruins the truce in an unspeakable breach of etiquette by going for Igrayne right there in front of everybody. Hostilities rebegin. Uther begs Merlin to let him have Igrayne by the spell of making so that he looks like her husband, Cornwall. Apparently it was the custom for husbands and wives to have sex in front of their toddler children, and furthermore Uther does not even bother to take his armor off during the act! That's what I mean by rape - Igrayne is being duped into having sex with Uther Pendragon. Morgana, Cornwall and Igrayne's child, looks on, sees through the spell of making, and also envisions her father dying on the battlefield throughout her mother's rape. This is something she never forgets.With Cornwall dead, Uther takes Igrayne for his own, and nine months later she gives birth to a child - Uther's from the rape. But, alas, Uther promised to give Merlin anything that came from his deception, so he must turn over the child, Arthur Pendragon, to Merlin. Uther decides a deal is not a deal, and pursues Merlin and the child, only to be killed by Cornwall's vengeful troops who are still hanging about. Merlin thrusts Excalibur into a stone and proclaims whoever shall draw the sword from the stone will be king. Why do the people keep listening to this guy? I guess the fact that he could turn anybody into a toad is part of it.Time passes, Arthur grows up looking and acting like nobody special (Nigel Terry), and is assisting Kay, a knight in a tournament whose sword is stolen. Arthur just sees the sword in the stone, does not know its significance, and just pulls it out to give to Kay. Merlin announces that Arthur has accidentally pulled Excalibur from the stone and he is king.Well it turns out that more than just the communist peasants in Monty Python's Holy Grail believe that pulling a sword from a stone is not the basis for an acceptable form of government, and Arthur has to work to solidify his kingdom. In the process, he marries Guenevere, daughter of one of his allies, and convinces Lancelot to join him. But Lancelot and Guenevere fall for one another, finally giving in to their feelings. When Arthur comes upon their post coital slumber he plunges Excalibur into the ground and wanders off broken.Now all of this time Morgana (Helen Mirren) is still bitter about her mother's rape and the product of that rape, Arthur, getting a throne because of her mother being deceived. She tricks Merlin into revealing the spell of making, traps him in a crystal, and then decides turnabout is fair play. She makes herself appear as Guenevere, causing Arthur to think his queen has returned to him, and he sleeps with her, conceiving an incestuous child. This child grows to manhood and challenges Arthur for his throne, which is easier than it would normally be because Arthur would have to kill his own son/nephew, plus the land has become barren and the people are starving because nothing grows from the ground, blaming the king. So how does all of this turn out? Watch and find out. This film is very atmospheric. Nicol Williamson steals the show as Merlin with his odd glances and one liners and looking very "unmagician" like at times. If he hadn't played a complete tool in "I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can" a year later, I might still like seeing him in this role.So what have we learned here today? Crime does not pay, the career options are not good for queens who commit adultery, and bitter half siblings can really mess up your life if you give them the chance. Recommended.