Quest For Camelot : Warner's Bid for the Round Table
It is a glorious time when talented filmmakers are taking the art form to new and exciting heights, where anything one can imagine is possible.
But not for Warner Bros. Their newest animated feature, Quest for Camelot, cannot seem to find a seat among the knights of the industry's round table. Like many a young but inexperienced squire, Quest fights hard to claim a rightful place among its more memorable peers, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and now, Anastasia. However, instead of journeying out on its own to conquer undiscovered realms in animation, it merely imitates its predecessors and ultimately, falls short of them.
Ye Olde, Familiar Tale
The film, directed by Frederik du Chau, takes place during the heyday of King Arthur's rule when knights were brave, victorious, trustworthy and well, men. One of these knights, Ruber (voiced by Gary Oldman), is definitely a man but not so trustworthy. A hater of all that is good in Camelot, which means just about everything, the wicked Ruber plots to overthrow Arthur by capturing the king's powerful sword, Excalibur. He nearly succeeds when his fumbling sidekick, Griffin (Bronson Pinchot), accidentally drops it.
Out to stop Ruber is our heroine -- a high-spirited, plucky young woman named Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig). Kayley is bright, beautiful, and physically a dead ringer for Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Like her Disney counterpart, she believes that women get shortchanged, especially at Arthur' s Round Table where they are not permitted. Despite these utterly Medieval gender restrictions, Kayley's dream is to be a knight like her late father, Sir Lionel, killed ten years earlier by Ruber. To avenge her father's death, save the kingdom from complete ruin and prove her knightliness, Kayley sets out to find Excalibur. She also plans to reach Camelot in time to warn an injured Arthur and his surprisingly passive wizard, Merlin, of Ruber's evil plan.
Splendor in the Forest
A veritable Dorothy traveling to Oz, Kayley is soon joined in her quest by a host of reluctantly helpful outcasts. The most attractive is Garrett (Cary Elwes), a young blind man and would-be knight who becomes Kayley's love interest, for no other reason than he is human and the only eligible suitor present in the film. Believing no one would want a blind knight seated at the Round Table, he has elected to live a hermetic life in the Forbidden Forest, an enchanted place where a host of strange flowers and other plants come to life in a very bizarre and unreal fashion. It's a kind of Dark Ages Fern Gully that seems to exist only to boost the animation potential of the film.
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