Post by Vits on Sept 1, 2017 15:45:01 GMT
THE SWORD IN THE STONE is a deceitful title. ARTHUR (nicknamed WART) pulls it and becomes king during the last 5 minutes. Disney movies usually end by zooming out and playing the theme song (generally sung by a chorus) for several seconds. This movie's final shot is maybe 5 seconds long. What was the hurry?! Actually, why end the movie there?! I was intrigued by the idea of a naive kid ruling a country with the help of a cranky wizard. It's not like we needed the prequel to the story we all know since there hadn't been many adaptations of the tale by 1963. This wouldn't have bothered me so much if the rest of the movie had shown something as interesting. There are a bunch of fun sequences (mainly the wizards' duel) and enough funny moments, but the scenes don't add up to a completely satisfying story. After every short adventure, WART & MERLIN talk about the lesson learnt. To me, it felt like they were paraphrasing the same lesson ("You'll get ahead in life by using your brain"), so why waste time teaching him the same thing over and over? In fact, there's an unnecessary time jump. In an early scene, MERLIN uses magic for snow to fall inside the castle WART lives in. SIR ECTOR (WART's guardian) mentions his surprise because it's July. In a scene near the end, it's snowing outside. I wanted to know what MERLIN taught him during those months. There's a point where SIR ECTOR gets ready to attack but he accidentally hits his son in the head with his weapon. The scene makes it look like it's a hammer or something like that, but it's a sword! When WART is turned into a squirrel, a female squirrel falls for him. When she discovers that WART is a human, she cries. I felt really sad. In any other Disney movie, she would've been turned into a human at the end. I guess I have to congratulate the makers for not taking that easy route, but I have no idea what the point of all of this was. You'll probably tell me that it was meant to be a lesson for WART. Since the writing and directing focus on how this affected her instead of him and since she's not seen nor mentioned again, there's no impact on WART. Therefore, none of this is relevant to the plot. MERLIN is kind of a hypocrite. He uses magic to make the dishes wash themselves. WART says he has to do it himself and MERLIN says that no one will notice the difference. Way to go Mr. "This kid must only learn the things that matter in life." Many people have pointed out the inconsistency of WART's voice (he was played by 3 different actors). While that did distract me, what bothered me was that none of their performances was very good. Neither was Sebastian Cabot's. WART and SIR ECTOR's arguement is the rare moment that works better with dubbing (the Latin American one).
6/10
CAMELOT makes the same mistake GIGI (another musical by Lerner & Loewe) made: For the most part, instead of dancing, the actors sing while walking and even while being sat down. Unlike that movie, this one doesn't have a single song that I can call "great." These interpretations of the characters aren't engaging (despite the cast's best efforts) and, production-wise, the movie isn't as beautiful as a musical of the 1960s (or even the '50s) could be. If you're a hater of the genre, you're probably expecing laughably cheesy moments. There are a couple but, believe it or not, they don't happen during musical numbers (for example, the wind blowing QUEEN GUINEVERE's hair when she's about to sleep with SIR LANCELOT). While I didn't love MY FAIR LADY (yet another musical by Lerner & Loewe), it still felt like a proper stage-to-screen adaptation. This one has some elements that work in a play but not in a movie:
1) The beginning shows KING ARTHUR & GUINEVERE meeting for the 1st time in the middle of a forest. They stay there for about 30 minutes. I don't just mean the location; I mean the exact spot.
2) ARTHUR often delivers a monologue when nobody else is around. Hang on. Isn't that one of the advantages of musicals? That characters can sing their inner thoughts? This is a musical! Why didn't ARTHUR sing those monologues?! Other musical numbers could've been just dialogue and the scenes wouldn't have been affected!
3/10
EXCALIBUR
1/10
QUEST FOR CAMELOT
5/10
KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD
1/10
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You can read comments of other movies in my blog (in English, in Spanish or in Italian).
6/10
CAMELOT makes the same mistake GIGI (another musical by Lerner & Loewe) made: For the most part, instead of dancing, the actors sing while walking and even while being sat down. Unlike that movie, this one doesn't have a single song that I can call "great." These interpretations of the characters aren't engaging (despite the cast's best efforts) and, production-wise, the movie isn't as beautiful as a musical of the 1960s (or even the '50s) could be. If you're a hater of the genre, you're probably expecing laughably cheesy moments. There are a couple but, believe it or not, they don't happen during musical numbers (for example, the wind blowing QUEEN GUINEVERE's hair when she's about to sleep with SIR LANCELOT). While I didn't love MY FAIR LADY (yet another musical by Lerner & Loewe), it still felt like a proper stage-to-screen adaptation. This one has some elements that work in a play but not in a movie:
1) The beginning shows KING ARTHUR & GUINEVERE meeting for the 1st time in the middle of a forest. They stay there for about 30 minutes. I don't just mean the location; I mean the exact spot.
2) ARTHUR often delivers a monologue when nobody else is around. Hang on. Isn't that one of the advantages of musicals? That characters can sing their inner thoughts? This is a musical! Why didn't ARTHUR sing those monologues?! Other musical numbers could've been just dialogue and the scenes wouldn't have been affected!
3/10
EXCALIBUR
1/10
QUEST FOR CAMELOT
5/10
KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD
1/10
-------------------------------------
You can read comments of other movies in my blog (in English, in Spanish or in Italian).