Justin et la Légende des chevaliers

Wonderful story about a young boy becomes a man as he embarks on a quest to become a knight , as he wants to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and join the Knights of the Roundtable . It deals with Justin (Freddie Highmore voice) lives in a kingdom where bureaucrats rule and knights have been ousted. Justin, the son of chief counsel to the Queen, lives in a kingdom where knights have been outlawed, and the land is over subscribed with laws for everything imaginable. His dream is to be become one of the Knights of Valour, like his grandfather was, but his father Reginald (voice by Alfred Molina) , the chief counsel to the Queen , wants his son to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. After an inspiring visit to his beloved grandmother and bidding farewell to his supposed lady-love Lara (Tamsin Egerton) , Justin leaves home and embarks on a quest to become a knight. Along the way he meets the beautiful, feisty Talia (Saoirse Ronan) ,and is mentored by three monks Whilst an unlikely candidate for knighthood, Justin must rise to the challenge quickly when banished former knight Sir Heraclio and his army, lead by Sota (Rupert Everett) , return and threaten to destroy the Kingdom . As Sir Heraclio (Mark Strong) wants Justin to join him and fight by his side. When the teen refuses, the king has no other choice but to unleash his flesh-hungry horde of vicious warriors on Justin and his girlfriend. Can he save the Kingdom from impending doom and a few other clichés? .

This amusing 3D cartoon has great animated sequences well staged with stylish and vitality , adventure , romance , outstanding final and results to be pretty entertaining . Enjoyable action sequences in castles , monastery , falls , including amusing ending confrontation at the climax of the film and a fun flying croc . Well produced by Antonio Banderas, fresh from providing his sexy Spanish tones for four Shrek films, has clearly decided that providing the voice of a cat in some near decent animated movies has given him all the knowledge he needs to produce similar animated box office gold . While the film has an addictive color and design graphics and 3D computer generator animation itself is extremely attractive, we are in presence of a film too simplistic and Manichean in his story to end. So, unfortunately, not much progress in achieving empathy and convey emotions that excite. Along his quest, the protagonist encounters a slew of quirky characters, a fun plethora of secondaries , as a strange wizard called Melquiades voiced by David Wailians , the handsome Sir Cloirex voice by Antonio Banderas ; the monks : Blucher , Legantir and Braulio voiced by James Cosmo , Charles Dance and Barry Humphries respectively , who teach and test him in the ancient ways of the Knights of Valour . The character "Sota" is inspired in one card of the Spanish deck, which is equivalent to the Jack in the international Deck, and has a very similar look to this character. Also, the name of the villain, Heraclio, matches the best known publisher of card decks in Spain, Heraclio Fournier .

Furthermore , this funny movie contains a nice Original Music by Ilan Eshkeri . Colorful and glimmer Cinematography by Javier Fernández .This Spanish motion picture was well written and directed Manuel Sicilia . Worthwhile seeing , better than average . The film will appeal to kiddies and teenagers .

Watched Justin and the Knights of Valour this weekend with my 8 year old daughter, my friend and her two similar age kids and they absolutely loved it! they were well entertained during the whole film, and I quite enjoyed it too as animation films go. Makes a nice change to see a classical animated story as opposed to dancing animals or the smurfs... And there are nice things in it for adults too: the British voice cast is great (watch out for Charles Dance as one of the monks)and the music was a nice surprise too. Nice simple story, packed with the action that the kids love and with some nice things for parents too.

I mean, the animation is not top AAA class but it doesn't look like puppet dancing either. Character animation was okey, their texture was also good for kids i guess. But the magician was i guess was too much animated. I mean, he looked like came from some Arabian nights movies. Scripts was not witty. Voice was sometimes terrible. But when you really want to watch it with open mind and put all AAA class movies aside from mind like Disney makes, you'd rather enjoy it ! Disney, pixer or Dreamworks put a lot of money into production and i was rather surprised to see they made it out of so little money ! And it was not a How to train your dragon rip of either, both are totally different. The story is predictable though.

Justin, a young man in a world where knights have been outlawed, has his heart set on following his late grandfather into knighthood against the express wishes of his father.

This Spanish CGI movie has an extraordinary voice cast of top notch actors. It's a shame that the voice/lip movements mismatch so much.

The film looks like a videogame rather than an animated feature. It's not unattractive, but it's not what we've come to expect from a cinematic feature. And Justin himself is copied from Aardman's Arthur Christmas from 2 years earlier.

The story and presentation are mostly OK - lots of colour, action and humour. But the film has an air of being assembled by people who aren't 100% sure about how films are put together: the timing of gags is frequently off, for instance.

The main attraction was the voice cast, full of talented people and what a line-up. The trailer wasn't really all that promising, it was of the competently animated but thinly plotted with flat jokes kind of animated film. Unfortunately, Justin and the Knights of Valour as a film wasn't that much better than its trailer. Was it completely terrible? No. Justin and the Knights of Valour doesn't have amazing animation but it is very competent and colourful with nice textures. The only not-so-good thing in this regard was the dragon, too bumblingcrocodile-like in design. It's pretty much the same with the music, rousing and pleasant to listen to if not particularly memorable. Freddie Highmore is a likable protagonist and the wise monks played by Charles Dance, James Cosmo and Barry Humphries are a nice touch and provide what spark there is to the story.

Was Justin and the Knights of Valour disappointing? Yes it was, one of the weakest animated films of 2013, or at least what has been seen by me so far.

The voice cast are talented but their talents are not used well and most didn't seem to be connecting with the material. Saiorse Ronan brought some sass to her role but often sounded forced, Antonio Banderas sounded uninterested in a pale imitation of Puss in Boots role(sadly that was true of Alfred Molina as well), Rupert Everett camps it up and over-compensated and David Walliams is painfully unfunny and is just annoying. Mark Strong was reasonably good, but he had material that was beneath him and suffered from a villainous character that was poorly written and underdeveloped.

They were let down by a rather dreary script that is laden with jokes that are flat in alternative to witty and dialogue that is rather lacking in life.

As well as a thin story that didn't do anything imaginative or fresh with a predictable premise. The pacing felt stretched out and dull with the writing as vapid as it was, and the film ends on an unsurprising and somewhat syrupy note. The archetypal characters lack colour and interesting personalities, so it's not easy to root for them. They're poorly developed too, Strong's character was written as almost feeling like an afterthought and seems to be just there as a form of obligatory conflict.

All in all a very disappointing animated family film, there was a lot of potential but the film does little with it. This is of course a subjective personal opinion- and to be taken with a pinch of salt- from a 21 year old who adores animated films and is aware of who they're mainly aimed at. That's not attention-seeking, merely to stop any stereotyping, condescension or parental ignorance(like the old, annoying and unnecessarily patronising "it's a kids film don't be so cynical). 4/10 Bethany Cox