- Directed by James Head
- Written by Antony Anderson
- Starring
- Jason McSkimming
- Francois Klanfer
- Mak Fyfe
- Francesca Scorsone
- Natalie Ester
- Produced by Cris Andrei
- Executive produced by David B. Pelmutter, Lewis B. Chesler, Vlad Paunescu, Donald Kushner, and Dana Scanlan (and Charles Band, uncredited)
These Kushner-Locke kidvids shot in Romania need to be assessed the same way that home appraisers assign value to a home; in addition to an objective assessment of the specific movie’s merits, you have to compare it to its comparable surroundings and see where it fits in in the community. In this case, The Excalibur Kid’s nearest neighbors are Teen Knight (1998) and Johnny Mysto: Boy Wizard (1997), produced by the same people under the same conditions, all three of them dealing with modern teens transported back in time to medieval periods. Johnny Mysto and The Excalibur Kid even have an Arthurian flavor in common. Compared with these other likely suspects in a lineup, The Excalibur Kid comes off pretty well. But I would have to say that see The Excalibur Kid after Teen Knight and Johnny Mysto is the only way to make it look good.
“I can’t wait to get cable; I’m tired of using my staff as an antenna!”
Zack (Jason McSkimming) is a typical teenage boy – at least, typical for this kind of movie; his father has accepted a transfer at work, which means that the family will be moving to the city. (As far as Zack is concerned, not consulting him on the move makes his parents into “total fascists.”) Zack also has a skill that will come in handy, that of fencing. Although what we see of his skill makes him out to be a pretty lousy fencer. Not that it matters as much as all that; there are precious few skills which translate from one-handed foil fencing to two-handed broadsword combat.
“‘By the power of Greyskull!’ — Wait, is that right?”
But I’m getting ahead of myself. From elsewhen, young sorceress Morgause (Francesca Scorsone), Arthur’s evil sister (I’d never heard her called that; I always knew her as “Morgan”) magically spies on him, then zaps him back in time while he trudges, sulkily, through the (very Romanian) forest behind his house. He walks right into a supposedly medieval-looking village, where a certain sword is affixed in a certain stone. Having read the inscription, Zack gives it a tug – and thanks to Morgause’s magicking, the sword comes out cleanly in his hand. Zack is the king of England!
Normally one expects alphabet soup to be a little more chaotic.
This, of course, messes things up. Merlin (Francois Klanfer) knows – in fact, because he lives his life backwards, he probably remembers – that young Arthur (Mak Fyfe of Teenage Space Vampires (1998)) is supposed to pull the sword out when he misplaces the one he’s supposed to have brought for his brother Kay. But now, Arthur won’t pull the sword from the stone, he won’t become king, and all of history will be changed!
In case you’re wondering why Morgause got this particular teen from fifteen hundred years in the future: she wanted someone whose ancestry couldn’t be traced, which disallowed any local teen, and her magic only worked on someone who wanted to come, as evidenced earlier by Zack, fencing foil in hand, commenting to his little brother on how simple and forthright the age of chivalry was. I don’t know why Morgause thought any fifteen-year-old from any era would be easy to control as a figurehead; hadn’t they invented teenagers in the fifth century AD?
Arthur and Zack. Neither of them is left-handed.
And in case you’re wondering how Zack reacts to being displaced in time: I don’t care how much he admires the age of chivalry, he should be freaked out by landing in mythic England, even if the people speak modern English without even a hint of British accent instead of some Saxon dialect. But Zack reacts with the gentle delight of someone who just found a five-dollar bill (which then ended up being the budget for this movie – rimshot!).
So Merlin and Zack join forces to convince confidence-challenged Arthur that he’s really supposed to be king while also trying to find the “Dark Book” from which Morgause learns her spells, and right about here I realized what this movie wanted to be: the Arthurian version of Back to the Future. It all comes together, doesn’t it? Time-traveling teen accidentally messes up history, and he and a zany old man try to convince persuade a teen with self-esteem issues to act in a way that will fix it all, so that he can go home again. The parallels are of course inexact; Zack doesn’t have a skateboard, and there’s no analog to Marty McFly’s mom getting the hots for him, but on the other hand Mak Fyfe as Arthur doesn’t do a full Crispin Glover, for which we’re all thankful.
Wizard duel! Lame wizard duel, but still.
But the realization that this movie follows the Back to the Future pattern is quickly followed by the disappoint which comes from that comparison. Compared to some of the other Kushner-Locke movies, The Excalibur Kid looks halfway decent; compared to a good movie, though, it comes across as cheap, arbitrary, poorly acted, and anticlimactic. At least it isn’t underwhelming in all the same ways that a script credited to Benjamin Carr would be.
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 0
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 0
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0
At least she’s called “Morgan” in Spellbreaker. They should have cast Madeleine Potter as Morgause for added continuity.
If I wanted to live in a time of swords and chivalry, I’d wish to live in a retro-future, like Rocket Robin Hood or Camelot 3000. That way there’d still be things like plumbing and dentistry.
Hey, Nathan, you should post this over at B-Masters. I don’t think you have yet.
In other words, he really is a pretty typical teenager, albeit one we’d like to smack upside his head.
No, they hadn’t, actually. Back then, a lot of guys that age were taking up arms for king and country and getting married. If she wanted Zack’s cooperation, Morgause’s best bet would have been to offer him the hand of some pretty young maiden in marriage and remind him that yes, such a marriage is totally legal throughout the realm and everyone will probably approve of him even more for being a family man.
Of course, such a plot twist would have required a major re-write of the script and a little extra casting, and there was no money in the budget for that…
I know. I was out of town for a couple of days, and auto-posted it. I just got back this afternoon.
Morgause/Morgays is one of the older figures in the Arthur Cycle, most notoriously by enchanting and seducing Art and producing their incestuous love-child, Mordred, his heir. Third sister Elaine doesn’t seem to do much.
Arthur’s evil sister (I’d never heard her called that; I always knew her as “Morgan”)
As Carl implies above, Morgause and Morgan are two separate characters in the Arthurian cycle. However, Morgause, unlike Morgan, isn’t really known for any magical ability in most versions of the legends, so it does seem as if the makers of the movie got the two confused. (T. H. White does make Morgause a witch in The Once and Future King, so maybe they took their interpretation of the character from there… though that may be giving the screenwriter way too much credit.)
Morgause and Morgana are sisters, and their roles are sometimes conflated. In early versions, it is Morgause rather than Morgana who is Mordred’s mother. The stories seem reasonably consistent that she’s the wife of King Lot and the mother of a handful of Round Table knights including Gawain.
This is why I raise an eyebrow anytime someone purports to tell “the real Arthurian cycle!”.
Damned organic myth cycles…
Damn! I’m feeling historically illiterate! I never knew Arthur had more than one sister!
And now I know………………………………………………..the rest of the story!
Nice Paul Harvey pause.
Well, according to later versions of the cycle at least, Morgan and Morgause are actually Arthur’s half-sisters. So… two half-sisters make one whole, maybe?
Ah, yes, but then there’s Elaine. So… Arthur had one and a half sisters? Okay, never mind.