Knight Worthy?
Quest Makes Decent Family Fun

In a summer promising a number of children's movies, Warner Bros. has decided to get a jump on the crowd by releasing their first animated film a month before even Disney's new film makes its debut. As children's movies go, Quest for Camelot has all the right elements, but it fails to move beyond slightly entertaining.

Unfortunately for Warner Bros., the field of animation has a high standard created by Disney Studios and followed last year by Fox Animation's Anastasia. While Quest for Camelot tells a good story, the visual element is flat and uninteresting (with one exception) and the music is uninspired. While the picture has a talented cast including the voices of several noteworthy stars, the picture does not live up to contemporary standards. It looks, feels, and sounds too much like a high-budget Saturday morning cartoon.

The story of Quest for Camelot is loosely based around the legend of King Arthur, but deals with a young girl named Kayley (voiced by Jessalyn Gilsig) whose father is a Knight of the Round Table. When Arthur (Pierce Brosnan a.k.a. James Bond) is betrayed by one of his knights named Ruber (Gary Oldman), Kayley's father is killed. She grows up holding on to the memory of her father, and vowing to become a knight like him. (This, apparently, is a theme this summer, seen both here and with a Chinese setting in Disney's Mulan.)

Ten years pass and the evil Ruber makes another attack on Arthur, this time by sending a griffin to seize Arthur's sword, Excalibur. The griffin is intercepted by Merlin's falcon and the sword falls into the Forbidden Forest. Meanwhile, Ruber is making plans to invade Camelot with his army (magically altered to merge with their terrible weapons so they look more like robots than knights). To get into Camelot, he seizes Kayley's mother, Juliana (Jane Seymour), as a decoy. Kayley escapes, but overhears that Excalibur is lost and goes into the forest to seek it.

From this point, Kayley's adventure takes on the classic quest storyline. She is befriended by a blind warrior named Garrett (Cary Elwes, The Princess Bride) and a two-headed dragon named Devon and Cornwall (Eric Idle and Don Rickles). As they flee from Ruber's monstrous men they must evade fire-breathing dragons (the bad kind), the treacherous pitfalls of the Forbidden Forest, and the giant rock-like ogre who has found Excalibur.

The animation of the ogre is incredible, and clearly the most amazing work in the movie. While the rest of the animation looks flat, the ogre looks three-dimensional (obviously the work of computer animation). Too bad equal care couldn't have been spent on the other parts of the movie.

As for the music, even the singing voices of Celine Dion (as Juliana) and Steve Perry (as Arthur) couldn't make up for the banality of the songs. I don't know if the songs themselves were that bad, or if the flat animation and lack of grandeur somehow made them seem insignificant. Only one song, "I Stand Alone," touched a chord in me. I think, however, the lyrics were made poignant by the fact that Garrett (who felt ostracized by his disability) was singing them.

As a children's movie, I recommend it. It is a wonderful, family film and I would not hesitate to take any child to see it. There are more than a few jokes thrown in for adults as well, so adults will also be entertained.

MY RATING: 4 out of 10.

RATED:
RUN TIME: 85 min.

Knight Worthy? Quest Makes Decent Family Fun

Knight Worthy?
Quest Makes Decent Family Fun