I paid a dollar to rent ‘Excalibur’ (1981) and now I want my money back
I am suffering. Film by Orion Pictures.
The short version? I created an IMDB account purely so I could rate it 1 star.
What I’m Reading: The Book of Taliesin (translated by Gwyneth Lewis and Rowan Williams, Penguin Classics)
What I’m Watching: Outside of endless Whose Line is it, Anyway? compilation videos on YouTube, I’ve insisted upon myself that I actually finish Cursed (Netflix) before I judge it.
Oh. My. Gods.
Not since Tom Cruise’s run at The Mummy have I been so hurt by a film. Worse, this didn’t even have a three-second cameo of the Gold Book to make everything okay, which is still the best part of The Mummy — that, and the credits, because that meant it was over. And don’t get me wrong, at first, it was simply a standard Le Morte d’Arthur retelling. That I can live with. I’d rather they did something different, something new and exciting, but hey, own what you are, that sort of thing. The problem lies in it not even accomplishing that. Excalibur is a dartboard with a bunch of Arthurian lore stuck to it, the chosen parts being whatever was hit.
This is well beyond it being a semi-dated, over-acted title. There is serious enjoyment to be had in such a thing, being a lover of so-bad-it’s-good films. Heck, one of my favourite films is still Plan 9 From Outer Space (for a laugh or three, you can read my review of that masterpiece here). But as someone with an exponentially growing relationship with the lore and history of the Arthurian legend, this film could only cause me pain.
Granted, there are a few good things in it. It’s not 100% a thing of nightmares. The cinematography isn’t bad, and Helen Mirren is pretty decent in this (though we’ll be swinging back to this film’s rep of Morgana); as well, I did somewhat enjoy the aloofness of Merlin’s character. Somewhat. More importantly, the first… third, I want to say? steps into the ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ territory, providing me with a level of enjoyment. And… that’s about it.
See, I had not gone near this film for a long time. I’ve other Arthurian movies and shows, some of which I have enjoyed immensely. And for Merlin characters, the Lord of the Rings films are outstanding (Gandalf being one of the more iconic Merlin adaptations). But in conversations with my mother, with whom I discuss Arthurian lore a lot, this film never came up. The first time it did was just after the movie started speeding downhill, at which point I took a break to vent to her about it.
Turns out there’s a good reason we’ve never included Excalibur in our conversations. She despises this film so much, she has in the following years attempted to repress it from memory entirely. But you know, you can’t really shit on something until you’ve watched or read it, and I did pay a dollar to rent it, so I decided to keep going.
I won’t lie — I had hoped to go longer here without bringing up Lancelot beyond a brief expression of my despising him. Him, the love triangle, that plotline is just not for me. All the same, seeing as I knew it would show up here, I figured I’ll just sit back and try to enjoy it outside of that as much as possible. But my aforementioned need to vent about its initial racing downhill?
If you have a fight scene between Lancelot and Arthur, and you make Lancelot the more likable of the two, you have declared war.
It’s really just my luck right now. My tarot cards practically sang, “Research Percival, Research Percival”, and thus, I had little choice outside of turning to my Arthurian arch-nemesis, Chrétien “I Created Lancelot” de Troyes. It has been my Dark Ages of research. But alas, now I’ve moved forward to The Book of Taliesin, which is bringing back all my grief from which I never recovered reading Taliesin by Stephen Lawhead.
But back to the film. I saw among the many IMDB reviews (so many 10/10s — if you enjoyed this film, I’m happy for you, I just… I don’t get how) someone suggesting this film is missing two hours, and I wholeheartedly agree. Not only did Excalibur go with the dartboard method, its jumping from event to event with years passing each time without proper buildup leaves the story and its characters without any room to grow naturally. In addition, the film relies on people knowing the mainstream legend to get any enjoyment. Alas, Thomas Mallory and Chrétien de Troyes are really where most people stop in terms of Arthurian knowledge. This makes Charis very sad.
That said, Excalibur manages to shit on all that, too. It does this in great detail by being two hours too short, firstly noted with Arthur’s sudden becoming a massive coat hanger without any warning or justification. Just, he was a cinnamon roll one second, now he’s a douche. Then, of course, after a brief battle with Lancelot and breaking Excalibur in anger, he gets it fixed up by the Lady of the Lake and bam, he’s better now. Character development! We also see this in the climax, with Arthur being all, “I can only offer you love, Mordred” one second, to “Outright impale the boy” three seconds later. Without any buildup between these two moments, which only happen roughly ten minutes apart, his killing Mordred feels like less of a “this is justified” and more of an “I’m doing this because the script told me to”. When your character’s justifications have only “because screenplay” to stand on, you’ve screwed up.
Also, if you’ve read my previous bloggering, you’ll know that seeing Mordred written off as a twisted, bratty, moustache-twirling villain was honestly just salt in the wound. And yeah, sure, he was a baddie in Le Morte d’Arthur, so as an adapted character, sure, but I was honestly too angry in a different direction to feel anything for it.
What was I so angry at? Well, lovely people, in a word… Lancelot. Of all the crimes this film committed, I was almost willing to forgive the ENTIRE THING for seeing Lancelot, years down the line, a raving old madman, looking like an absolute mess. Here I was, thinking, “Oh my goodness, are they really going to give me this? To see him such a wreck?” For all, with that, I would forgive. And then… he showed up. Kicking ass at the final battle, before Mordred and Arthur face-off, Arthur finds Lancelot dying, and they have one more chitchat, the last time together being when Arthur found him and Guenevere together.
And then, these lines were uttered between the Bear of Britain and the “best friend” who couldn’t stay away from Arthur’s wife.
Lancelot: [Fatally wounded] Arthur. Forgive.
Arthur: Lancelot.
Lancelot: My salvation is to die a Knight of the Round Table.
Arthur: You are that. And much more. You are its greatest Knight. You are what is best in men.
I don’t often react aloud when watching films, but to be quite blunt, the words out of my mouth were, “Get fucked!”
The best in men? THE BEST IN MEN?
YOU ARE ITS GREATEST KNIGHT?!
In WHAT WORLD is Lancelot—
Morgana is played splendidly but done beyond dirty in the film’s climax. I just… her death felt so unjust, but for it all, I theorise how poorly her character was treated may not have been in vain. On the contrary, I think it may have been the kick for subsequent pro-Morgana literature the world desperately needed for all this film did to her character. Take The Mists of Avalon — outside the author’s unfathomable darkness, it is still one of the most important modern Arthurian stories we have. Indeedy, for a character who began as a healer, helping Arthur at the end of his journey, time has not been kind to her. Excalibur really felt like adding to that. Cheers, movie.
Guenevere, as is often the case, is something of a nothing character. I could honestly say that for almost everyone in this film outside of Arthur, Merlin, Morgana, and Mordred. I would add Lancelot to that, but he is a nothing character in my heart, so.
I will concede that it was nice to see Kay as not so much of a foul-mouthed idiot. Reading Perceval, I honestly don’t know how someone hasn’t yeeted him off a cliff yet. As well, Percival was probably my favourite protagonist, with surprisingly little to do with Chrétien’s rendezvous with the character. So that was nice. Legitimately, though, reading that and then watching this has been very much a kick to the gut I hadn’t really planned. The reading part, I knew, would be shit (though, admittedly, part of it was unintentionally some of the funniest shit I’ve read in a long time), but this film?
Let me summarise again: the more I think about Excalibur, the more I decide it’s worse than Tom Cruise’s The Mummy.
That is a bar no one should try and outmatch. Just… no.
So, um, yeah. Hadn’t expected to violently impaled in the chest with a film, I somehow survived Perceval, and The Crystal Cave was very much free therapy. I may review Chrétien’s work and then leave it behind forever next fortnight, but I don’t know how much suffering I feel like enduring at this point. I hope to see you all again next fortnight, have a lovely day!
— Charis.
