Quest for Camelot

1998 "Share the adventure, laughter and song in a land where magic was born and where wizards, knights and dragons still live."
6.3| 1h26m| G| en
Details

During the times of King Arthur, Kayley is a brave girl who dreams of following her late father as a Knight of the Round Table. The evil Ruber wants to invade Camelot and take the throne of King Arthur, and Kayley has to stop him.

Director

Producted By

Warner Bros. Family Entertainment

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Reviews

ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises
ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.
Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews
Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.
Jesper Brun There are many animated movies from the 90's that tried to copy Disney's fairytale musical formula with mediocre outcomes at best. Quest For Camelot is one of the blandest I have seen so far. Not unlikable, just bland.The Hermit was the one character with an interesting side to him, but it is sadly left out and not further explored. Our main character is one of the bland imitations of successfull Disney characters. She looks a lot like Belle and her conflict is as generic as can be with a father who does not mean that a woman is capable of something which in this case is being a knight. She runs away and proves her worth. Don't get me wrong, it is nice to see independent women in animated movies, but how she runs out into the meadow to declare her desire for something bigger than herself is such a blatant rip-off that it hurts. The two-headed dragon was a nightmare come true! Sure Eric Idle is nice, but oh my god those lines he and his partner had to work with! And their song! Rip-off once again and out of place! Pop-culture references can be funny, but it didn't male any sense in this movie. The animation was nothing special. I liked the forest landscapes and the mountains, but I found the character designs weirdly coloured. The use of CGI seemed out of place once in a while, but that is of minor significance. The songs were not that great or memorable. The singing voices in most cases did not match with the speaking voices of the characters most notably the Hermit. I liked "Looking Through Your Eyes" even though The Hermit showed his non-matching singing voice. "The Prayer" was the most oddly placed song in the entire movie, because a tender ballad like that does not fit into an action-packed chase scene. I cannot say Quest for Camelot is complete garbage, but it is sure not for the adults unless you have a nostalgic bond to it. A year later Warner Bros. released a masterpiece which I at all times would choose over this one.
Steve Pulaski In the 1990's, large, industry conglomerates, in an attempt to dethrone Walt Disney as the ringleader in animation, were creating divisions of their company dedicated to releasing animated films that would optimistically create lucrative hits for the studio as a whole. I cite this specific reason as to why, whether it seems I'm actively searching or not, I constantly find a great deal of little-known, animated relics from that time period that were either financial failures or simply films that have aged with no pop culture footprint to show whatsoever. Quest for Camelot is an intriguing little footnote for this time period, as it pretty much bears all the reasons Walt Disney's impacting animated films were frequently imitated but never duplicated or matched, at least during that time, in terms of quality.The film feels like it was written from a template for animated films that revolves around the same basic hero and villain structure, boasting everything from cheap side characters offering comic relief, relatively unremarkable animation, and unmemorable songs. We focus on Kayley (voiced by Jessalyn Gilsig), who ventures out as a young girl to Camelot to meet King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. While there, she is acquainted with the greedy knight Baron Ruber (Gary Oldman), who attempts to assume all the powers brought forth by a sword by the name of Excalibur. Fast-forward ten years later, Excalibur has been stolen, and Kayley teams up with Garrett (Cary Elwes), a blind knight and Devon and Cornwall (Eric Idle and Don Rickles), a two-headed dragon that reminds one of Zak and Wheezie from Dragon Tales (I can't believe I'm making that kind of reference) to recover the stolen sword.Quest for Camelot has all the clichés and predictabilities one can think of in an animated film. Spliced infrequently amongst the zippy action of the film are indeed musical numbers that are just drenched with worn messages and uninspired lyricism, hopelessly showcasing how not only thrown together this project was from the get-go, but written without heart and wit to accompany them. One of the reason Disney succeeds so overwhelmingly with their animated films is they throw in thoughtful themes, great characters, and engaging stories, and, most importantly, are written, directed, and animated by people who clearly love animation and care about making a great product. Testimonials from Quest's crew have stated how working to create the film was more like an exercise granted by people who foolishly assumed creating an animated film was a fool's errand that could be done by anyone. With that, what was created was one of the most perfunctory animated films I can think of, not only robbed of any creativity, but any kind of soul to speak of whatsoever.The animation, even for traditional, hand-drawn standards, looks very mediocre. To think Toy Story, one of the most revolutionary animated films ever made, was three years old when this film came out is an astounding thought, and even as Quest for Camelot tries to blend old animated styles with newer, glossier ones, it simply fires back in the film's face, looking even more ugly. It was the awkward period between the old and the new, meaning bigger players were free to make bigger moves thanks to their more impressive technology (Disney, Pixar in this case) and those with cheaper, older animation were forced to make due with what they had from a technology standpoint. While some companies and projects worked to do what they could with what they had, Quest for Camelot's mediocre animation perfectly compliments a tired story.Finally, there's the problem that lies with the characters. Besides Kayley and Garrett being two of the most unremarkable animated heroes, Ruber has a seriously stunted, nonexistent personality, even for a villain. A large chunk of the film sees him absent, completely ridding the film of any kind of suspense from an antagonistic side, leaving an already soulless, empty film even more gutted of any emotional connection.Quest for Camelot is a shockingly cold film, and given how much happens in seventy-seven minutes, it's all the more shocking to note how boring most of the film is. The entire film is a curious failure of underestimating the success of an empire and thinking their success is simply luck and a few computers.Voiced by: Jessalyn Gilsig, Cary Elwes, Jane Seymour, Pierce Brosnan, Gary Oldman, Eric Idle, Don Rickles, Bronson Pinchot, Jaleel White, Gabriel Byrne, and John Gielgud. Directed by: Frederik Du Chau.
ablewuzi This is a disgusting film filled with offensive feminist propaganda from front to back. Show this to children you hate; children whose minds you wish polluted and whose growth you wish stunted. It is basically hate.It is astonishing that this drivel isn't banned outright.I have to re-evaluate the work of Don Rickles, Pierce Brosnan and Gary Oldman in light of their revolting contributions to this vile film.Cheap animation, cheap music, production values and creative content about the same as Felix the Cat. Sounds so much like a Felix the Cat film that I suspect common creative talent--but don't care enough to actually find out.
Genevieve Well, I finally saw it. And boy, it was nothing to sneeze at.(**Spoilers**) Now, I tried to give it a chance, I really did. Being a big fan of animated musicals, I tend to enjoy films of this genre. But sadly, the effort was wasted in this misshapen heap of a story. Now, for the positive side, I must say I thought the two-headed dragon was hilarious... Eric Idle and Don Rickles were simply perfect picks for their voices. However, the main characters were bland, and lacked a proper chemistry. Kayley was drastically out of place with the story. Her whole, "I wanna be a warrior" rant reminded me of Taran from "The Black Cauldron." Ladies were not knights, and did not sit with the men at the Round Table. And NO woman dressed like she did at that time. Garrett was the most boring, angsty piece of wood, it hurt. And, to top it all off, the two main characters fell in love in less than a day. (I'm sorry, but even for an animated film, that was way too rushed, considering how they got along in the first place. Ruber, the villain, was a lame, inept villain, who lacked a good motive. It was lame.The singing voices for the characters (not counting Devon and Cornwall (the two-headed dragon), and Ruber (the villain), who did their own singing) were all obviously different. And the songs came out of nowhere. I mean, one minute we have Kayley's dad telling her about Camelot, the next, the knights are parading and singing to Aurthur's castle. Yeah, that *TOTALLY* happens in real life. I know animated musicals have songs, but they're usually better done, and fit in with the storyline. The animation smelled... and I often saw re-used clips about three times over. And the colors were so washed out, it hurt.And the plot... hoo boy! Did these people even try and base it on the book it supposedly originated from? Now, I never read the book, but I read its summary, and the characters are barely anything like this. The plot is weak, watered down, and lame. I know the book was adult, but they could've made a kid-safe version of it. And Arthur and Merlin are in this for all of ten minutes, max.The only *really* catchy song in the film was "If I Didn't Have You", and the only really beautiful song was "The Prayer." This is sad because there were other songs scattered throughout the film. So yeah, this film tried so hard to be a Disney-clone, yet it couldn't hold the candle to other really good non-Disney films, like "The Swan Princess", "Thumbelina", "Anastasia", "Balto", and "Prince of Egypt."Case in point, don't waste your time. It's quite forgettable.