"A knight's strength comes from the heart."
Hello everyone!
But never fear, I still have a list of stuff waiting to be watched, including but not limited to Black Widow, so here we go! Tonight's one is a blast from the past more than anything else. I mean, the movie IS 23 years old, which is as long as someone's lifetime.
Then again all the good movies seem to have the longevity to them at the end of the day so I'm not even remotely surprised that this is what happens.
Anyway, I'm rambling now.
Why don't I stop with my babble and jump straight into the important bits?
Aka, you know the story of the Sword in the Stone - but do you know, or do you remember, the story of the Quest for Camelot?
The reason I bring up Sword in the Stone first is because in some places, tonight's movie is ACTUALLY named Sword in the Stone: Quest for Camelot, making it a sort of unofficial sequel to the part in which Arthur goes from a poor, unknown boy to king, and Merlin surfs back into the picture in Bermuda shorts.
Listen, I'm not even joking LOL.
But Quest for Camelot continues the story after Arthur takes Excalibur from the stone, and what happened with everyone then.
It's actually told by one of the Knights of the Round Table, Sir Lionel (Gabriel Byrne), to his daughter Kayley when she asks him about it. Lionel tells that all the land was in darkness, brother fighting brother, and no one could release the sword from the stone until an unknown, Arthur, stepped up to free it - on the day Kayley herself was born.
After that, the building of Camelot began, and it's been ten years since. The king has called his knights to the city once more, and they answer the call, so that they may divide the lands they've spent a decade protecting.
Which is where things go wrong.
See there's this one guy, Ruber (Gary Oldman), who for some reason no one has figured out is completely insane yet (the eye twitch kind of gives it away, people), and who wants more land than anyone else because ... well, because. He also wants to be king, but that's beside the point. He attacks Arthur, but Excalibur prevents him from coming to any real harm, though the same can't be said about Lionel, who dies in the process.
Note to any self-respecting Disney parent anywhere: you have been warned. Your death is PROBABLY imminent. LOL.
Arthur takes his body back to Juliana (Jane Seymour) and Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig), and ten years pass again, with the young girl dreaming to follow in her father's footsteps, though her mother doubts her there (it should be noted Juliana doesn't doubt that Kayley could be a knight because of her gender, but simply because she doesn't think her daughter has the skills - 1998 was the year of empowerment without trumpeting!).
But there's other problems on the horizon, namely Ruber, who slinks out of whatever hole he fell into ten years ago, to abduct both Juliana and Kayley, use Juliana to gain entrance to Camelot, and thus overthrow Arthur.
What about Excalibur, you say?
Well, a griffin goes to retrieve it for Ruber - a griffin with manners, please - but is thwarted by Merlin's silver-winged falcon, who forces the beast to drop it over the Forbidden Forest.
In the confusion of some wicked magic which turns regular humans into metallic monster fighters, nobody's looking at Kayley, and Juliana urges her to ride to Camelot to warn Arthur. Kayley might have even done so if she'd been looking where she was going, but sadly she takes the turn for the Forbidden Forest instead (I've no idea why the path to it was even labelled, would they need to do it??). Inside, she stumbles upon the unlikeliest help imaginable.
Garrett (Cary Elwes) is a blind hermit, who lives in the forest because there's no place for him in Camelot. Kayley convinces him that finding Excalibur is imperative, and so they set off on their adventure together, followed closely by Ruber and his men, also on the hunt for the sword - and the girl.
Now I will say that Kayley actually NEEDS help at this point - again, not because she's a girl, but simply because she's naive, oblivious, clumsy, and hasty, something that Garrett manages to temper through their sojourn together.
In return, Kayley teaches Garrett that not everyone will consider him a freak because he's blind - especially not the daughter of Sir Lionel, who actually knew him in Camelot and believed in him after the stable fire accident that took his sight.
But as the chemistry between them grows, so does the urgency to get the sword, and they stumble into dragon country where they find their next side-kick, a two-headed dragon named Devon and Cornwall. Why is it two headed? Well, as per Devon's quote, they're proof that cousins shouldn't marry, and I think this is some solid life advice Game of Thrones people should have painted on their bedroom walls.
Together, they escape Ruber and his men, though not long after Garrett gets hurt because Kayley won't shut up in her prattling, and just for the record of any worried watcher out there: he gets NICKED by an arrow on his right side. I promise you, other than burning pain, he'll be just fine.
It serves as a neat love song starter point, however, and then they continue on, following footsteps of an ogre who apparently has Excalibur - which, yes, he does, and he's using it as a toothpick.
Useful sword, innit?!?
Just snatching it from Ruber - who ends up flat under the ogre's butt, and said ogre also ate something that gives him gas at the time - the group hurry on towards Camelot, where Garrett turns away, telling Kayley to go on alone as there's no place for him in the city.
In the nature of all good movies, Kayley's snatched right afterwards, and Ruber grafts Excalibur to his arm with his diabolical magic. They actually do enter Camelot - Juliana's under threat of watching her daughter die if she doesn't sit there quietly - but Kayley sets off the alarm and fighting ensues in the city.
Meanwhile, Devon and Cornwall run to get Garrett, and he discovers the reason they can neither fly nor breathe fire is because they can never agree on anything, but as they both love Kayley, this helps them achieve both those things, and they arrive at Camelot just in time. While the dragon goes off to deal with the griffin harassing the falcon, Garrett and Kayley go after Ruber, luring him out to where the stone of Excalibur stands in a stone circle - Stonehenge? - and the idiot, too gone with his lust for the kingdom that isn't even his, sticks the sword back where it came from.
This dissolves Ruber and allows Arthur to reclaim it as its rightful owner, after which he knights both Garrett AND Kayley, and Kayley shows everyone that it's totally okay to rock a stunning dress and flowing hair, embracing your feminine side, while still being a badass knight.
Together, the young couple then ride off after marrying, and the movie ends with a party in Camelot - just as it began!
And man oh MAN but is it a good movie!
It has an entertaining villain (Ruber is absolutely insane, as Juliana attests, and he thanks her for that compliment) and engaging heroes, as well as a plotline that works. My only question is the timeline, because at one point in the story, Garrett explains that the falcon found him in the forest shortly after he removed there, and taught him everything he knows, but the audience knows said falcon slums it with Merlin on the daily, and only really left Merlin's side to protect Excalibur, which is in the same day when Kayley arrives.
So unless the falcon moonlights in this teacher gig, I don't exactly see how it works out, but then again it IS a cartoon, so I suppose we can suspend disbelief, at least to a certain point.
Anyway, Excalibur definitely has magical properties in this one, but interestingly enough they're only used once or twice, otherwise our characters are forced to fend for themselves - while Kayley DOES recover the sword, she never uses it, as it belongs to Arthur only. She uses other characteristics of her own to show why she's worthy of being a knight, and let me tell you, given how loud feminists have been in the past few years and how male characters need to be dumbed down now, movies like Quest for Camelot are refreshing because they set up Kayley and Garrett as equals.
And nobody thought anything was weird about that!
I swear these old movies have aged better than some of the modern-day ones, and deliver better messages. So if you want your kids to see a Disney character who's NOT a princess, who goes on a quest purely because it's the right thing to do after the horn rings out that Excalibur's been stolen, and who can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with an equally strong male character as they face their challenges together, then DEFINITELY pick this one up.
You won't regret it (also shout-out to the fabulous music, with talent from Celine Dion, Bryan White and others)!
xx
*images and video not mine
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