An adventurous girl, a young blind hermit, and a goofy two-headed dragon race to find the lost sword Excalibur to save King Arthur and Camelot from disaster.
Director: Frederik Du Chau
Stars: Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Jane Seymour, Pierce Brosnan, Bronson Pinchot, Jaleel White, Gabriel Byrne, John Gielgud.
Kenny Ortega ... choreographer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120800/
disc arrived; only bought this because it came with another film I wanted.
13 songs in the Soundtracks. 11 Written by Carole Bayer Sager and David Foster (including 1 with Steve Perry also).
Didn't realize KO was choreographer until I saw it scroll past in the credits. Next time watch for "dance" to see what he might have contributed.
JG is the young heroine, CE the young blind hero, GO the evil knight, EI & DR the 2-headed dragon, JS the mother, PB King Arthur, BP the Griffin, JW the bird with an ax-beak, GB as the heroine's father, Sir JG as Merlin. EI, PB and JG voices jumped out at me; surprisingly none of the others.
It took me a while to get over the improbability of a knight of the Round Table being so equality-minded that he essentially encourages his daughter in her aspirations to be a knight. Then we find out he also did so with the blind former stable boy.
The creatures are quite imaginative, and their attributes are used well in the story. The 2-headed dragon walks like the heads are controlling each side of the body independently, which causes other problems of coordination. When the heads finally agree on a common goal, they regain all their dragon-ly powers.
The rock ogre is fascinating to see; apparently CGI created with software intended for live-action special effects, he looks much more 3D than the rest of the film, but he's so different (and onscreen so briefly) that it just enhances his magical nature.
The story has enough going on to be interesting, and requires more than casual attention to get it. I've run the film a few times now, and it holds up to repeated viewing.
Stick around for the credits, because deep in (the last song) they give us Andrea Bocelli singing the mother's Prayer song, and wow does it sound great. I'm not a big AB fan, but when he sings it, it really sounds like something to be offered in church by an expert soloist. He sings it in Italian or Spanish or maybe Latin. Too bad it doesn't last longer.
The songs during the film are a bit much. Especially the love songs seem too frequent, and then when one of the singers says they need to hurry, my reaction is "don't sing so much". They are pretty tunes, but nothing that stays in my head.
Per an extra feature, this is the first full-length animated film for the new Warner Bros Feature Animation unit, formed after all the Animaniacs and other series of the new wave for Warner animation.
Rated 6.3 (13,017)
Warner & more, dir. Du Chau; 8
