Quest for Camelot (1998) – Review

Based on the fantasy novel The King’s Damosel by Vera Chapman, Quest for Camelot was Warner Brothers’ attempt at moving in on Disney’s long-held territory of animated fantasy films. Unfortunately, they had very little success as films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were kicking off the Disney Renaissance period, and it certainly would have taken something better than a film based on a little-known novel to knock Disney off that pedestal. That the studio made so many changes from the source material, making it barely recognizable to anyone who’d read the book, certainly didn’t help matters much. That all said, how does it stand up on its own as an Arthurian fantasy film? Let’s take a look.

The protagonist of Quest for Camelot is a young girl named Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig), who dreams of one day becoming a Knight of the Round Table like her father (Gabriel Byrne), but when said father is killed by a vile knight named Ruber (Gary Oldman) during an attempt to overthrow King Arthur (Pierce Brosnan), her dreams are put on hold — it should be noted that killing off a parent is a very Disney tactic, so we can’t fault Warner Brothers here — yet ten years later, we still find Kayley dreaming of becoming a knight, despite her mother’s (Jane Seymour) insistence that the Knights of the Round Table don’t need her help. Way to support your daughter’s dream, Mom. It’s when the villainous Ruber returns to Camelot and steals the fabled sword Excalibur that our story finally kicks into gear, as it’s up to Kayley to venture forth and save the kingdom.

“Your job is to marry a prince, not save the day.”

And what exactly does Kayley need to save Camelot from? Well, it turns out that Ruber has somehow come into possession of a magical elixir that will allow him to transform his soldiers into horrific mechanical monstrosities by melding them into whatever inanimate weapon they were holding. Ruber captures Kayley’s mother because he needs her to gain access to Camelot — an army of monsters apparently is not enough of an advantage — and with Excalibur in his hands, nothing can stop him… well, except for one tiny wrinkle. Ruber had sent his winged griffin to steal Excalibur, but when it is attacked by Merlin’s (John Gielgud) falcon it, dropped the fabled sword into the Forbidden Forest and now it is a race between Ruber and Kayley to see who will find the sword first.

Luckily, she finds a man to help her.

Quest for Camelot is a perfect example of how not to tell a fantasy adventure story, as it fails to give us any characters to root for. Kayley is a rather obnoxious heroine and the plot continually undercuts any “girl power” theme, and that she is teamed up with the rather boorish blind hermit Garrett (Cary Elwes) doesn’t help matters any as their travails through the Forbidden Forest vary from the pedantically lame to the outright insulting. The story is hurt further any time we cut back to Ruber and his incompetent minions as we are then constantly reminded how lame a threat our villains truly are. Then if things weren’t bad enough, the movie saddles us with some terrible comic relief, and I’m not even referring to the half-axe/half-chicken voiced by Urkle, which is bad enough, but that of a two-headed dragon named Devon (Eric Idle) and Cornwall (Don Rickles) who dislike each other and cannot breathe fire or fly. To call anything “comedic” concerning this pair would be an insult to comedy.

“We are the reasons cousins shouldn’t marry.”

The poor excuse for comedy presented here isn’t even the film’s worst failing because the plot itself is beyond-the-pale moronic. Ruber’s plan makes little to no sense, as is the inclusion of Kayley’s mother as a hostage is completely unnecessary, and when our heroes eventually find Excalibur and escape the Forbidden Forest, we get blind asshat Garret telling Kayley he won’t be continuing on to Camelot with her, giving her some bullshit excuse about how “there’s no place for me in Camelot,” sending her on her way alone. Who needs a badass blind fighter when the fate of the kingdom is on the line? Thus, he abandons her so that she can get quickly captured by Ruber a few minutes later. Are we truly supposed to sympathize with anyone in this film?

Did we really need Kayley to become a damsel in distress?

Garrett will, of course, come to the rescue, along with Devon and Cornwall who can now breathe fire and fly, and they will save Kayley from Ruber’s minions. It should be noted that the only interesting thing Kayley does in this entire movie is tricking Ruber into sticking Excalibur back into the stone, yet the film then backtracks this female-empowering moment by having her and Garrett ride off into the sunset together like any other cliché fantasy. Don’t screenwriters understand things like character arcs? Earlier in the film, Kayley wasn’t interested in getting a new dress; she wanted to be a Knight of the Round Table. Yet, when the film ends, she gets a seat at the table, but still ends up with a new dress.

Way to undercut your “Girl Power” message, guys.

Stray Thoughts:

• When Excalibur is stolen, Arthur orders horns to be blown to alert the populace of the theft. Question: Is Excalibur stolen so often that there is a recognizable horn signal for when this occurs?
• Kayley’s father is voiced by Gabriel Byrne who played Uther Pendragon in John Boorman’s Excalibur.
• Though she’s not a Disney Princess, Kayley is still your stereotypical female protagonist who dreams of something more than this provincial life.
• The Devon and Cornwall tell Kayley and Garrett that they can’t go back to the Dragon Country because if they do, they will be “banished and exiled for helping humans.” How is not going back any different than being exiled?
• Don Rickles and Eric Idle’s constant slew of anachronistic jokes was clearly an attempt to copy Robin William’s performance as the Genie from Disney’s Aladdin. They failed.
• The movie is 99% traditional animation, but then they throw in a CGI ogre that would barely pass muster on an episode of the animated series Reboot.
• When Excalibur is returned to the stone, everyone is suddenly healed and all the men who were turned into monstrous half-men half-weapons revert back to normal, but for some reason, Garret remains blind. As magic items go, Excalibur is a total dick.
• The big question is, of course, how did a knight like Sir Ruber even earn a seat at the Round Table in the first place?

This guy reeks of evil from his every pore.

As mentioned, this film was based on the fantasy novel The King’s Damosel by Vera Chapman, but Quest for Camelot bears very little resemblance to the book. The novel consisted of two sisters, an arranged marriage, the rape of one of the sisters by a mentor figure, a Red Knight who attacks their home and demands the eldest daughter marry him, and the younger sister escaping to Camelot to plead to King Arthur for help in rescuing her sister. Now, there is a blind dude who eventually shows up in the story, and he does provide a love interest for the heroine, but he also ends up dying in her arms. This leaves one wondering: did the filmmakers even read the bloody book?

I don’t expect rape in my cartoons, but was this the best alternative?

This movie is a complete bastardization of the source material. To be fair, Disney is often guilty of the exact same thing, but at least the folks at Disney have the ability to tell a cohesive story (which they then populate with amazing songs), but that is not the case here. This film has about a dozen songs throughout its 86-minute run-time, and most have nothing to do with the plot or character development; they are an assembled collection of inane drivel that will have you reaching for the fast-forward button. There is one good song in this film titled “The Prayer,” which was wonderfully performed by Celine Dion, but it was dropped into the film with absolutely no thought to context. The music arranger for this film should have been drawn and quartered, or at least sealed away in a Crystal Cave.

“Could anyone see if Morgan le Fay is available?“

Quest for Camelot rightly bombed at the box office; its lazy animation, poor storytelling, and forgettable songs ensured that this film would not make the list of childhood classics.