A Knight in Camelot

This movie caught my eye at my local video store simply because I am a fan of medieval movies no matter what the title is or what it is about. But since I am not a big fan of Whoopie, I figured that I could check this one out anyway. Boy, what a flop it was. The only thing that was good about this film was the costumes!!! This movie stars big named actors/actresses with lame speaking parts. They would have been alot better if they would have kept their mouths quiet. Whoopie with her pathetic one line jokes did not fit in with this century or this movie. I think that for the most part medieval movies should not even be turned into a comedy. Jon Voight as King Author just did not fit in the film as well. And then we see him dressed as a slave. There were many parts in this film that contradicted what the characters were suppose to be. is he a king or a slave? Is Whoopie a witch or a knight? This movie was terrible and there are many other recomeded childrens movies to watch other than this. I give it a 3, simply because of the costumes.

This is a very entertaining production of Mark Twain's classic time-travel story, tho this time we have Whoopie Goldberg, who works with computers, zapped back into Camelot with her laptop and boom box! Nice cast, including Michael York as Arthur, Paloma Baeza, Amanda Donohoe, and Ian Richardson as Merlin. Good all around, especially for kids because there's several messages to be learned here. The FX could be better, but this is not a big budget film and they are okay. Good costumes, including Whoopie's suit of armor! Solid 8.

Admittedly, I only rented this movie because it was free due to a Blockbuster promotion. However, I generally like Whoopi Goldberg's work so I was hopeful.

Whoopi provides her usual spunk in the movie but she's failed by a pretty insipid script that had gaping loopholes - like Clarence didn't actually defeat Sir Sagramour, and a lack of payoffs - the treacherous 'hos Guinnie and Lancelot didn't get theirs, and Whoopi never gets to deck Merlin.

I was all prepared to give this movie a 6/10, which is a marginal thumbs up for me, since the movie did give a couple of laughs and Whoopi was fun, but then it ended abruptly when it was supposed to deliver the two payoffs stated above. So I'm giving it a 5/10 instead, a marginal thumbs down.

Dr Vivien Morgan accidentally gets sent back in time to the court of King Arthur. Wearing strange clothes, dropping from the sky and being black, she is naturally mistaken as a witch and taken to be burnt alive. However a timely total eclipse allows Morgan to fool the King into thinking she is a great wizard. Using her knowledge of the future she accomplishes many things and sets out to teach Arthur how to be a better King to his subjects.

Yet another spin on the old Twain story – however this one MUST be good cause it's a TV movie! With Whoopi Goldberg! Yes, that's right it's an unimaginative bit of fluff. The story is nothing special and nothing new – the main changes are the `urban' aspect Whoopi brings to it and the slave aspect that she brings to the story of kings and subjects. This means we have lots of Whoopi teaching high-5's, teaching them all to dance etc. The way she fits in so easily (despite wearing Reeboks) is very lazy and it show little effort has gone into the script. When the end approaches and everyone starts learning valuable lessons about life, you know you've just watched a TVM.

Whoopi does her usual stuff, but it's years since she's been at her comedic best (even her 2001 Oscars was tame when compared with Billy Crystal) and she can't save this just by being Afro-American. The rest of the cast just seem bemused. Baeza tries hard and seems sincere but Donohoe is clearly pining back to her LA Law days, while York just have a mocking smile on his face for the whole film – in fact just like in Austin Powers, the difference being that was meant to be a spoof.

Overall, TV movies generally promise very little and deliver very little – this has nothing new to offer and doesn't do anything with the recycled material that it has. Poor – for kids only.

As I have read the above comment about costumes, I do have to say that the costumes do not match the time period (I forgot what Clarence said the year was, 750 I believe?). I am studying up on the 14th century clothing for both my illustrations in my book, as well as for my SCA garb. I saw the short tunics with the tights (Most notably with the acrobats), and also the armour. You're probably right that they are just spoofing some medieval movie (or the story of Arthur itself) with the full armour and costumes, but as a fan of medieval movies myself, it kind of gnaws at you about the historical accuracy itself. I like Whoopi anyway, so her performance was her usual self. This movie, in my opinion, parallels Martin Lawrence's "Black Knight" movie. I give it a five because I like Whoopi, and it's one of those movies that doesn't leave you stranded at the end. At least the sword fighting was not half as bad as this one medieval kid's movie (A movie so bad the name escapes me), where the child actor held the sword straight up and down while the henchman strained himself with every blow trying to get his sword past this child's perfect defense by holding the sword up and down, at arm's length no doubt.