Bonus Episode - ToB Film Club - Excalibur (1981)

Tower of Babble

The ToB Film Club escapes the 90’s but retreats into the past, and depending on how you look at it, how far back into the past may be an open question. Julian and Jeremy delve into the mystical world of Arthurian legend, and examine director John Boorman's interpretation of this timeless tale. Despite the stunning, and surprisingly literal, portrayal of knights in shinning armour, an epic score, and precise cinematography, the film suffers from some dated decisions. Not the least of which being extremely clunky dialogue, accentuated by overly hokey “medieval” accents, some very clumsy action scenes, and a complete disregard for any type of coherent pacing. Despite these drawbacks, a few strong performances and an extremely unique and “cool” visual style (it begs for a 4K re-release) help drive this movie, even as it seemingly tries with all it’s might to disengage the audience at every turn.

Next Month: with 'Mission: Impossible' on the mind with the pending release of 'Dead Reckoning Part 1' we return to one of the most controversial installments in the franchise with John Woo's 'Mission Impossible 2' i.e. 'MI2'.

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