Quest for Camelot W Activity Book

Buy This Item Quest for Camelot W Activity Book by Warner Home Video  Available from Amazon  $14.95  on 11-16-2008     Following their animated/live action hit <i>Space Jam</i>, Warner Bros. jumped into the fully animated feature competition by playing it safe, giving the Arthurian legend a conspicuously Disneyesque facelift. Ingredients from <i>Beauty and the Beast</i>, <i>The Little Mermaid</i>, and <i>Pocahontas</i> are evident in the tale of a girl named Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig) whose father, a Knight of the Round Table, is killed by Sir Ruber (Gary Oldman), a maniacal brute who steals Excalibur and threatens to seize King Arthur's Camelot. Kayley enlists the blind, reclusive knight-aspirant Garrett (Cary Elwes) to brave the Enchanted Forest and retrieve the magic sword, and their adventure is (of course) fraught with danger. Adding extra punch to the movie's commercial appeal, the soundtrack songs are performed by big names like LeeAnn Rimes and Celine Dion. And if that's not enough to hold a kid's attention, there's a two-headed dragon ("we're the reason cousins shouldn't marry") voiced by Eric Idle and Don Rickles. With so much talent involved, it's entertaining but uninspired, although cleverly harmless riffs from <i>Dirty Harry</i>, <i>Taxi Driver</i>, and other movies spice up the adventure with enjoyable pop-culture references. <i>--Jeff Shannon</i> Reader Reviews The B-grade Bad-guys are devoid of motive and dimension---as is the wimpy waif of an Arthur. Yet the film has some endearing moments: the animation of the forbidden forest with its writhing tree limbs, monster-eating plants, grasping branches, and helicopter flowers, is charming (nothing quite like it in any of the Disney-forests); the two-headed dinasour who can never fly because it can never agree with itself (among the better of the animated world's comic side-kicks); and the reluctant romance between a blind forest-dweller (who reminded me a little of Tolkien's Bombadil) and the damsel he rescues---are a few of its unique and surprising highlights. The opening scene too---skimming across the wave-flecked ocean before suddenly rising up and over a huge promontary--- somehow creates a mood similar to the one I felt during "Castle in the Sky." Enchanted.

Quest for Camelot W Activity Book Available from Amazon Price: $14.95 Updated on 11-16-2008.

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