Prince Valiant

This is a rather funny movie with all the right fantasy-ingredients in it. The actors are alright especially Ron Perlman and Katherine Heigl. It is well made and the camera photo is inspiring - I like the tempo-changes. But there is one thing I didn't like and that was the use of animated drawings tucked inside the movie which totally destroyed it. So because of the use of animation it only gets a 7 and not a 9.

Spectacular adventure with a lot of colorful pageantry and old-fashioned action , concerning on King Arthur and Prince Valiant , though the movie falls short . It packs a non-sense blending of joky modern dialog and Dark Ages action , as the screenwriters don't get the appropriate touch . The whole cast is far too distinguished to be appearing in this sort of caricature of Medieval legends . It deals with King Arthur who governs in the legendary citadel that is Camelot . His Knights of the Round Table commit acts of derring-do and spend their spare time jousting and enjoying feasts . There young orphaned Valiant (chubby Stephen Moyer) is the squire to Sir Gawain (the same director Anthony Hickox) , one of King Arthur's (Edward Fox who steals the acting honours) knights . He is given the task of escorting princess Ilene (Katherine Heigl who is inappropriate here , holding an excessive ironic tone) to her home in Wales and naturally the young twosome fall in love . Meantime , the sword Excalibur has been robbed by Viking king usurper (Udo Kier) , an evil tyrant , and villainous leader Thagnar (Thomas Kretschmann). Then Ilene gets kidnapped and it's up to Prince Valiant to rescue both Ilene and Excalibur . As young Valiant set off to save princess away from risks and of course rides into it . As Valiant brushes aside bangs and journeys to Thule to look for his lover . There Valiant along with a group of outlaws (Warwick Davis , Ron Perlman) attack the Viking stronghold .

This is a Medieval tale with adventures , full-bloodied action , unspeakable dialog , villainy , terrific jousting , romance and heroism in the grandeur of Scope although in television set loses splendor . The movie displays breathtaking battles , being ambitious in scope with epic confrontation and a striking final climax for a mortal duel . Handsome story , being regularly written and contains some awkward narrative elements . Excellent settings , monumental castles ,outdoors and tournaments or jousts are well staged . However this spectacular film never takes off as it should despite pomp and circumstance showed , so you'll be excited and embarrassed alternately . In any case , filmmaker does some breathtaking set pieces and the attack of a Viking castle colorful and vividly thrilling . This is the classic story of romantic adventure come to life enriched by glamorous color and impressive battles . Wooden protagonist duo , Stephen Moyer and Katherine Heigl , both of whom future TV stars with ¨True Blood¨ and Grey's anatomy¨, respectively . Supporting cast is frankly good though wasted , employing such notorious players and not building them roles with which to make a considerable impact , as the screenplay never give them a chance , there appears great stars as Edward Fox , Ron Perlman , Joanna Lumley as Morgana Le Fey , Walter Gotell's last final and Thomas Kretschmann who wields an ax with vigour . The movie was re-cut by the German producers, while the director was away on Christmas vacation. They wouldn't fly him back to Germany to finish the film. Four key scenes setting up its humorous tone and all religious aspects were removed.

This is another attempt to literally transfer a comic-strip about the Arthurian saga to the screen , the first and the best was ¨Prince Valiant¨(1954) by Henry Hathaway with Robert Wagner , Janet Leigh , Victor McLagen , Donald Crisp , Sterling Hayden and Debra Paget . Other movies on the matter of legends of Arthur resulted to be : (1953) the classic ¨Knights of the Round Table¨ (by Richard Thorpe) , the musical ¨Camelot¨ (Joshua Logan), the fantastic ¨Excalibur¨ (John Boorman) , ¨First Knight¨ (Jerry Zucker) and recently ¨King Arthur¨ (Antoine Fuqua) . The picture will appeal to aficionados with chivalric ideals and epic movies fans , it is a passable production that will lose much on small television screen .

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After seeing the somewhat visually overwhelming Lord of the Rings trilogy, this was a pretty decent fantasy film to watch. Whilst most of the characters were pretty generic, some were good to watch, especially Prince Valiant. The violence was pretty tame, although this is not really a problem, as most of it looks realistic for the times that the story is set in, as does the armour and weapons, aside from maybe Excalibur. The special effects are slightly cheesy, but all the same they didn't really damage the story. You could kind of tell what the ending was going to be, but the story flowed well. Overall, a good movie to watch.

"Prince Valiant" is, apparently, based upon a comic strip, although I must confess that I had never heard of it before seeing the film. The story is set in Arthurian Britain. The king's magic sword Excalibur has been stolen by a gang of Vikings from the kingdom of Thule, so Valiant, a young squire, is sent to recover it. On the way he falls in love with the beautiful Princess Ilene (a name which can be pronounced either as "Eileen" or "Elaine", depending upon which character is speaking) and discovers that he himself is in fact none other than the long-lost heir to the crown of Thule, which has been usurped by the current incumbent, the villainous Thagnar.

The Arthurian legends have not always transferred well to the cinema screen. In recent years we have had the decidedly average romance "First Knight" and the decidedly below-average epic "King Arthur". "Prince Valiant", however, falls so far below average that it almost falls off the bottom of the scale. It is not a would-be epic along the lines of "King Arthur", but rather a sword-and-sorcery adventure along the lines of "Conan the Barbarian", "Red Sonja" or (to take a more modern example) "The Scorpion King".

Stephen Moyer makes a particularly dull hero, acting as though he were recovering from a serious charisma bypass operation. Katherine Heigl makes a pretty but equally uncharismatic heroine as Eileen/Elaine; on the evidence of this film she may have had the looks to succeed as a Hollywood star, but not the talent, so I was rather surprised that she has gone on to star in successful television series and films like "Gray's Anatomy" and "Knocked Up".Edward Fox, who stars here as Arthur, is a talented actor who should have known better than to sign up for rubbish like this.

The one exception to the generally low standard of acting is Joanna Lumley, still splendidly seductive in her fifties as Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan Le Fay, but this only made me wonder why Joanna, who is one of Britain's most popular television actresses, seems to make so many bad choices when she ventures into the cinema. There have been occasional exceptions, such as her cameo in the excellent "Shirley Valentine", but too many of her films have been awful ones- "Don't Just Lie There, Say Something" and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula" are other examples.

Even worse than the standards of acting are the action scenes and special effects. The fight scenes were all clumsily handled and those alligators were ludicrously unconvincing. The storyline was often confusing and difficult to follow and the lighting was so gloomy as to make me think that the film-makers were interpreting the phrase "Dark Ages" absolutely literally. "Prince Valiant" is billed as a British/Irish/German co-production, which only goes to show that there is at least one field, the tenth-rate fantasy epic, in which the European film industry can hold its own against American competition. I can only assume that the film's European origins were the reason that it was overlooked for a well-deserved Razzie nomination. 2/10

With a so impressive cast, the story just matters ? It is the simple question after its final. Because its gift, after almost three decades, it is to represent the answer to inner children , nostalgics and lover of fairz tales and their not pretentious adaptations.

Sure, a king Arthur remindind Charles I Stuart, a young Stephen Moyer in a role not so comfortable ( not only for him ) but behind Prouix or Bill Compton , a young and nice Katherine Heigl behind Izzie Stevens and chain of romantic comedies and Warwick Davis more than seductive. And, sure, excalibur , near the impressive crocodiles. So, what expect more ?

The result, a sort of gratitude and nice veil of nostalgia, near some good smiles.