I was shocked,suprised and flabbergasted by the negative reviews I would see on the web, I thought that this film a very,VERY good Arthurian movie along with Walt Disney's classic "The Sword in The Stone", and the MGM live-action classic "Knights of the Round Table" with Robert Taylor & Ava Gardner and the musical "Camelot" starring Richard Harris & Vanessa Redgrave.

This film has everything: a very good story and excellant music; and that's one thing I love in a movie is a very good soundtrack; and an excellant voice casting too. I love Kayley (you go Girl!), and her desire to carry on the tradition of her father in the excellent song On My Father's Wings was a great scene in the film. I also love song "The Prayer" too; the song became popular among artists like the Celtic Woman (I don't understand why a popular song would come from a film that people thought it's awful).

I'd been wanting to watch this movie for a while now because I'd read mixed reviews on it. I finally found it really cheap at Wal-Mart as a two pack with "Cats Don't Dance". I'm glad I didn't spend much on it, that's for sure.

Mediocre sums everything about this movie up rather nicely.
The story, which is very predictable by the way, follows Kayley on her journey to Camelot, which she's always longed to visit. It tells of how she saves the kingdom by finding Excalibur, which was stolen by Ruber because he wants to be king. The most interesting plot twist, and pretty much the only one, was when Ruber turned his minions into living weapons. That was different, although how he went about it was kind of cheesy.

The characters were bland, like the story, and some were just downright annoying. Throughout the whole movie I stayed only partially interested in what was going on. Kayley was boring. Her whole goal is to become a knight like her late father. The two headed dragon, supposed to be funny, was just annoying. The humor is forced and doesn't work. King Arthur annoyed me in that he was such a wuss throughout the whole film. Right, the great King Arthur who fought and won many battles needs to be rescued by a teenage girl and a blind hermit. Oh and a bumbling two headed dragon. The hermit, Garrett, was the only character I actually liked. Probably because he was the most interesting, mostly because he was blind and had a little bit of a back story.

The animation is close to the quality you'd see on a Saturday morning cartoon. At times the characters don't move smoothly or they move stiffly and in an unnatural way. The 3-D animation clashes horribly in this movie. In some movies it works but in this one it just didn't. For instance a really detailed rock troll attacks the characters, it moved smoothly and was animated rather well, but the 2-D characters are so simple that it doesn't fit.

The songs are bad, well maybe not entirely bad but they don't fit in the movie very well. It really annoyed me that Garrett's singing voice sounds nothing like his speaking voice. The score is ok, in some scenes it was quite good and in others just so-so.

I'm surprised this wasn't a direct to video release really. It's definitely not the worst movie ever, but it's not one I think I'd watch again at least not for a very long time.

By 1998, the Disney Renaissance was starting to become a bit stale. Don't get me wrong, the films produced by Disney in the late 90's were still good in their own right, but they felt like they were not really stepping out of the formula for success established by The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. As Disney was bringing home the bacon, other studios wanted a pie of the pie. Enter Warner Brother and Quest for Camelot.

The story was loosely based on The King's Damosel and is set during the Arthurian period. The evil knight Ruber wants his turn in the King's throne and challenges Arthur. The knight Lionel falls defending his king, though Ruber is defeated and exiled. 10 years later, Lionel's daughter Kayley has become a woman, a woman who wants to be a knight like her father. Also, Ruber has made plans for another attempt at taking over Camelot. His pet griffin steals the sword Excalibur, but loses in somewhere over the Forbidden Forrest. So, it is up to Kayley, a blind hermit Garret, and a two-headed dragon to find the sword and save Camelot.

One of Ruber's methods for destruction is that he has the magical ability to turn animals and people into weapons. Fro example he turns a chicken into an axe-beaked menace (who later says in a Clint Eastwood voice, "Do you feel clucky."). He also gives men mace arms and sword hands. I guess implanted weapons are easier to hold on to.

In any case, the film was pretty much a flop mustering only $22.5 million, but I feel it is a tad underrated, either that or it is just a guilt pleasure for me as I found a lot to enjoy. For starters, this is one of the better family friendly swords and sandals films out there. It is more fun than both Disney efforts The Black Cauldron and The Sword in the Stone, with more action and humor than both. Just like in the failed Cauldron, the tone may have dipped too dark to be completely family friendly and unfortunately, some of the humor doesn't fit too well with the sometimes serious tone of Camelot. This film takes place in a world where the good guys can really die, but the chickens perform slapstick, and a two-headed dragon (claiming to be the result of breeding cousins) sings rock and roll. There is also a bit of romance added for good measure. The truth is, the makers of Camelot must have checked off all the necessary elements of a hit Disney film, but forgot to stir the ingredients together into a consistent whole. While they included the witty sidekicks, catchy tunes, dash of romance, nice animation, and fairy tale setting, they failed to recognize that even for Disney, this recipe was getting old. Also, the timing of the film was unfortunate. Camelot did not have the instantaneous buzz that the hip new CG films were generating, and Camelot's failure was another nail in the coffin for traditional animation (at least for the hopefully temporary demise of 2D).

Now that I have given a bunch of reasons this film failed, I will address a few things that I think it got right. First of all, there are not enough films set in the Middle Ages. I still would like to see a good adaptation of the King Arthur story on film (even in live action). This film captures the spirit of Camelot and of the Knights code. It also presents a character that is not just a cookie cutter heroine. I found the character Kayley to be quite endearing and her desire to carry on the tradition of her father in the excellent song On My Father's Wings was a great scene in the film. In addition to that song, a couple of the other musical numbers also stood out including The Prayer and Looking Through Your Eyes. There were some funny moments in the film, and I appreciated that the zany dragon was not voiced by the easy choice of Robin Williams. In fact, the voice cast of this film sported a host of all stars including Cary Elwes from The Princess Bride, Gary Oldman, Pierce Brosnon, Don Rickles and Eric Idle. For the most part, CG elements fit very well into the traditionally animated film. A large rock creature stood out a bit, but was himself well animated using the computer technique. Lastly, I was pleasantly surprised by the Superman theme accompanying one of the film's heroic moments.

Sure, it is not a perfect film, but it is not the disaster many believe either. While it is rife with cliche, it still has a certain charm of its own. In all, I dub Quest for Camelot worthy of a B.

Well, I liked this film! Enough to watch it over and over, to tell you the truth.

The main story is obviously predictable: Girl who dreams of going to Camelot to become a knight gets her chance when King Arthur's sword is stolen. She plans to get the sword and return it to its rightful owner, but she has an greedy knight and his gang of half creatures-half weapons hot on her trail.

Oh, goody.

Plus did I mention the blind forest guy who lives with a falcon and the two-headed dragon that can't fly? I don't think so. Together the trio (or should I say foursome?) fight the evil knight and save Camelot from its DOOM!

Yeah, add a few songs for a good touch (the song of hope, the serious, angsty ballad for the loners, the villain's song that tells of his dastardly plans, the funny tune about the "sidekicks", and of course, the beautiful love song) and some decently good animation and you have this.

Although it's predictable, I liked the film! Yes, Kayley's character is annoying like a stubborn, little girl (actually, I liked her in the beginning when she was a little girl), the dragons . . . well, they're cool, and Garrett . . . he's a smart, blind guy with courage to boot. The other characters seemed weak to the storyline IMO, such as Ruber (the crazy villain) and his cronies.

The colorful animation and character design was quite beautiful and smooth, the music and songs fit the tone of the scenes nicely (except I'm going to have to agree with a comment mentioned earlier: the fact that Garrett speaks in an accent and that he sings a country ballad (sung by Bryan Adams) is just plain weird. It makes no sense at all, really.), and everything else was okay.

In conclusion, this is worth at least one viewing. It spins a lovely tale that could have been much better if some things were changed. Other than that, it's decent for a family film.

3 stars.

I see that the other reviewers didn't like this movie... again, maybe I'm just insanely easy to entertain, but I loved it.

What did I love about it? I loved the animation of the Griffin and especially Ayden- they both looked very realistic.
As for the songs? I loved "Ruber" and "I Stand Alone" and the others. Heck, the only song I didn't like the "Looking Through Your Eyes."

As for the characters... Kayley annoyed me- but then again, I think that's what she's supposed to do. Devon and Cornwall- the dragons- were funny (at least to me). Garret's personality seemed centered around his blindness because that what he has become: bitter and obsessed with his handicap- he can think of nothing else. At least, that's my take on it. I could be wrong...

Anywho, I thought the characters and voices were excellent (Gary Oldman was great as Ruber) although King Arthur was a wimp. (Play the scene where the Griffin 'bites him' slowly... The Griffin's beak doesn't touch him!! All that hit his arm is a piece of wood from the chair!!)

At any rate, this movie is definitely worth checking out if, for nothing else, to see listen to the Steve Perry version of "I Stand Alone" (played over the end credits) and to witness the beauty of the Griffin and Ayden's animation.

I must admit that this movie was a one time only for me. But I did see it in theaters. It looked like an amazing movie that I would enjoy but I was a little dissapointed. My first clue was that during the whole movie there was only one other person in the theater besides my friend and I. That was a big surprise. When the movie first started I enjoyed it. The problem was that it started to lose my attention towards the end. The songs could've been written better as well. But don't get me wrong, I still had a good time but I wouldn't pay even to rent it to see it again. It was generally an "ok" movie.

Like any other form of entertainment, there are highs and there are lows--and this movie, I'm sorry, was a bottom-scraper kind of low. Let's start off with characters. Kayley, who looks and sounds like she's fifteen, wants to go off and become a knight like her father. That's fine, except for the fact she looks better-suited to flower-tending than fighting. When she says her charcter-defining statement, "I want to go on grand adventures. I want to go to Camelot," she sounds like a petulant child. As an audience, I am completely unmoved by her goal. Then there's the 'love-interest', Garrett, who's entire character seems to consist of the bitter-blind-boy. The really sad part of it is, he has the deepest character in the entire film--and that's only because he's blind. I commend the studio for including a physically disabled character, but really, the fact that Garrett is blind shouldn't be his only characteristic. The entire film is like this. A splotchy storyline strung together with unmemorable dialogue and characters that have all the depth of a pancake. The only plot point that held any interest for me was when the villain, Ruber, creates his minions by fusing human beings with weapons. This however hardly makes up for the rest of this film's failings.

In the area of animation, the character design was fairly bland to begin with but that fact was compounded with truly terrible animation sequences that literally left me sick to my stomach. If the action wasn't moving too slowly then it was this blur of images edited so tightly that each barely registered before the next flew across the screen--this phenomenon was particularly awful at the climax of the film. In addition, it would seem that the animators felt the need to take advantage of the 3D animation technology that was being used to enhance the films of other animation studios. As such, they had one computer-generated character in the whole film, a rock-giant of some sort. It was very well rendered with a lot of attention to the crags and the moss and what not, however it was completely incompatible with the totally flat characters that inhabited the rest of the film.

And the music... I think the thing that bothered me most about the music was that there was no consistent stylistic thread between the various pieces. In one part of the film there's a celtic-esque piece as the knights ride into Camelot and then there's Garrett singing a country western song about being independent. Even worse was the fact that Garrett's speaking voice (provided by English-accented Cary Elwes) was nothing like his singing voice (provided by country music singer, Bryan White). By themselves, the songs were probably okay but under one movie they were totally incompatible with one another.

Quest for Camelot... proof that star-power alone cannot make a good movie.