Along with Ken Russell, John Boorman can be seen as a key figure in the modern British cinema... His interest in myth, dream, landscape and memory may be compared with that of Resnais, Leone, and Roeg...

Boorman's 'Excalibur' is characterized by his use of jealousy and adultery, sex and sorcery... It is also characterized by fire and fog, shadow and moonlight, creating an air of mystery that is essential element in the Arthurian legend...

Boorman's 'Excalibur' is a mythical presentation leading the viewers to travel with the flow of the legend... It is a magical story with wonderful exotic sets, and interesting camera-work in the lush green scenery of Ireland... (The Cinematography won an Academy Award Nomination).

Boorman's "Excalibur" is both fantasy and philosophy... Love seems to be a destructive force, lyrically beautiful and bravely realistic...

The film brings to life the fateful story of a solitary hero, his ascension to the throne, the love triangle of Camelot, the quest for the Holy Grail, the decline and eventual fall of Arthur and Camelot... Along for the ride are his indispensable Knights of the Round Table, particularly Sir Lancelot...

The characters in Boorman's "Excalibur" are extremely well developed... Arthur is seen as a naive squire, who develops into an idealistic king... Arthur tries to use Might for the establishment of Right, and according to his own laws, he puts reason over love...

A prominent figure in the film is Merlin... He lives backwards, which makes him "a dream to some, a nightmare to others." He defines the cave of the dragon as a place where all things meet their opposite: "The future and the past, desire and regret, knowledge and oblivion". But when Morgana pronounces "love", one would expect Merlin to answer "hate", but he just says: "O yes."

Morgana knows that Uther and Merlin are responsible for the death of her father... She dedicates her life to revenge.. Her scenes with Merlin are full of fire and poison... When she steals the "charm of making" from Merlin, Morgana gets stronger... We feared her lines when she affirmed: "I can ease your loneliness."

Lancelot looks at himself as a sinful person who has betrayed a friend... He stays lonely in the forest, haunted by sorrow and pain... He dreams of a fight with himself... And when he wakes up naked, he sees his own sword stuck in his side... The film endures and inspires because it embodies mankind's deepest yearnings...

Among the many elements that make the movie work is the cast: Nigel Terry, the rightful King who, accidentally, removes the sword of power easily, not once, but twice; Helen Mirren, the enchantress Morgana, Merlin's nemesis and Arthur's treacherous half-sister, who seduces Merlin, and then encircles him in a stream of vengeance; Nicholas Clay, persuasively ardent and athletic as the First Knight; Cherie Lunghi, the damsel in distress who loves her husband with her mind and Lancelot with her heart; Nicol Williamson, the wily Merlin who would see that the young Arthur receive the necessary training and guidance to fulfill his unlikely destiny; Gabriel Byrne, the hot-blooded Uther Pendragon, who plunges 'Excalibur' deep into a stone rock in one last act of defiance; Katrine Boorman, the woman taken as by a fully armored King; Liam Neeson, the knight who dares to accuse the Queen; and Robert Addie, the 'unholy child' who comes to Camelot to demand the throne of his father...

One of the more fascinating aspects of the film (and there are many...) are the differences between Uther and Arthur... King Uther is unable to master his instincts... His world is confusion, disorder, and unlimited passion... The characteristic developments of Arthur occur as he faces the trials of his life... The knowledge of the affair yet his love for his beautiful wife and best friend wage war inside of his mind... When he sees Guinevere in the arms of Lancelot, he stuck 'Excalibur' between them loosing his connection to the extraordinary powers of Merlin and the Lady of the Lake...

John Boorman's films frequently concern contradictions and polarities, tensions between nature and civilization, dream and reality... Equally, his career as a whole swings violently between success and failure, intelligent ambition and pretentiousness...

The story? The cast? What makes this film the most dramatic and memorable of all the Arthurian re-tellings, even though it is three and a half decades old, and was done at a time when CGI was in its infancy? Mainly (with one exception, explained below) its Boorman, clearly one of the greatest and most passionate directors of his era, his films pop off the screen into the cortex of the viewer. Each scene is framed with passion. The early part of the story where magic is used to fool the wife of the elder Pendragon into believing that her husband has returned "early" is possibly one of the spookiest and yet most engaging scenes of its kind. It haunts you for years after. And the second factor to consider is Nicol Williamson, himself one of the most charismatic and intense actors of his era. His Merlin is equally iconic, unforgettable, driven, and the portrait of a man trapped within his own destiny. Even his accent (an odd mix I cannot clearly define) makes each sentence he utters that much more profound. An astonishing film, equal parts myth, action, fantasy, romance and also a strange creepy horror which no film since has captured or emulated.

This is a film that needs to be watched differently from most films. It operates very differently from the more realistic bent that the vast majority of films lend themselves towards and leans very heavily into a much more formalistic approach. It's an effort to bring Romantic painting to life with an operatic feel, and if you can't get into that different style of reality, then the movie's going to just be funny. Buy into the hyper-reality, though, and you have an entertaining 140 minutes ahead of you.

Everything about this film is big. Costumes entail men walking everywhere in full plate armor. Sets are huge and completely impractical. Performances reach for the rafters. The world is filled with magic and the implication of a huge dragon. It's very much of its own style, and the fact that Zach Snyder considers Excalibur his favorite movie makes just so much sense.

It's the traditional Arthurian legend filtered through the crazy mind of John Boorman. It goes beyond the formalistic stylistic approach to the story, but the inclusion of every weird factor of the original myths plays into Boorman's wheelhouse. Merlin using the magic of the dragon to disguise Uther to trick Igraine is a prime example. But Boorman also includes some extra-mythical elements like having Morgana be Mordred's mother and Arthur his father, creating an incestuous relationship that was never there before. It's rather fertile feeding ground for Boorman's insanity, and I'm really glad he used it.

It blows through the Arthurian legend, mostly propelled by Nicol Williamson's awesomely weird performance as Merlin, watching Uther father Arthur, Arthur claim the sword in the stone and rise to become king, the peace that follows, and the dissolution of that peace precipitated by the affair between Guinevere and Lancelot. Alongside is the rise of Morgana, her tutelage under Merlin, and her raising of Mordred. All of this is big and entertaining (if weird and uncomfortable at certain moments), but it's the late introduction of the Grail Quest that kind of derails the latter half of the film for me.

The Grail isn't mentioned until about 90 minutes into the film, and it's just very suddenly dropped in as a very important thing that needs to be found right then. Arthur is sick, the country is sick, and they need something to revive the nation and its king. Suddenly, "Hey, Percival, go find the Holy Grail."

The Grail Quest feels really tacked on. There are some striking visuals like the actual vision of the Grail that Percival has and the image of Percival hanging from the tree because of where the Quest took him, but it's a sudden late introduction that actually doesn't come to fruition. Maybe if the Grail had been introduced earlier in the film it would have worked better, but as it is, it feels like the Grail is in the film because it's a common part of the Arthurian legend and not because there was a compelling reason to include it in this telling.

Overall, though, the film is really quite an experience. Divorced from reality and existing in its own fantasy realm, it creates its own rules of behavior and sticks to them. It's really pretty from beginning to end, well using the Irish countryside (around John Boorman's house) with mise-en-scene that really evokes Romantic paintings. The performances, especially Nicol Williamson's as Merlin, fit well with the material, and it's an entertaining look into another reality that follows different rules from our own.