Prince Valiant
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Movie Reviews of Prince Valiant
Movie Review: Don Diego DV
Summary: 4 Stars
The movie brought back memories of my youth. It has been more than 40 years since I first seen the movie. Everything came back easily. The movie is widescreen and the color was excellent. Highly recommend it.Movie Review: VALIANT VIDEO
Summary: 4 Stars
I AM AN OLD MOVIE BUFF AND THIS MOVIE I SAW YEARS AGO BUT I STILL ENJOY IT NOW AND IN THE FUTURE. ITS GREAT TO SEE THE ACTORS SO YOUNG THEN AND
THE VIDEO IS IN GREAT SHAPE
Movie Review: A great film.
Summary: 4 Stars
A great film.
Huge scenes.
The best adaptation of that comics.
It is films that it wins with the years.
Movie Review: Grand old-fashioned Cinemascope entertainment
Summary: 3 Stars
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released this DVD on May 11, 2004. For anyone who's a fan of the Cinemascope era of the studio, this DVD is a must have. The movie itself is a silly contrivence of the time, based on a popular comic strip, as the illustrations during the main titles show, but it's all well-mounted with excellent photography and a Franz Waxman score that's a prime example of how a composer can really elevate the atmosphere and pace of a movie. The depiction of the era of the story is cardboard, with everyone and nearly everything looking too pretty and well-manicured -- no grubby surfs are anywhere to be seen, and even the comicbook Vikings are too clean -- but it's fun at its own level, even if today the movie's pace is a bit slow. My only complaint is that top-billed star James Mason isn't in more of it. The actor and his character are far more interesting to watch than the story's protagonist and the stiff, young Robert Wagner sporting a silly wig!Fox has done a decent job of restoration on this 1954 Technicolor film. While the look is dated and the film stock is more grainy than we're used to today, the majority of it looks remarkably good. I suspect much of it was newly struck from the black and white color separation masters, but the frequent lap desolves have the second generation look of excessive grain and poorer color fidelity. There's one bad anomaly in the transfer at 24min.15sec., a 15 second shot that looks to be third generation. It's soft, grainy and blocked-up. Except for a couple rear projection shots elsewhere in the movie, nothing else in the transfer looks this bad. Otherwise this is a fine looking 16X9 anamorphic DVD of a vintage Cinemascope film.
Originally this movie was presented in some theatres in 1954 in 4-track magnetic stereo. Here, what survives of the stereo tracks is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (not 5.1 as stated in another review here). I'd have preferred if Fox had gone to the efforts of doing a proper 4.0 transfer, but the stereo still sounds good, with the directional dialogue of the era intact, though it can be a bit distracting when left and right speakers are too far from the screen (in theatres the speakers would of course be behind the screen). I found I had to raise the dB level of my rear surrounds to +10 in order to bring out the ambient sound of the film, mostly reserved to the music, but at 1:27min.21sec., when pig fat is used to light fires during the siege of the castle, the mono surround did come alive with fire noise and that was fun.
I'm only giving this DVD three stars because Fox didn't have enough faith (and they may be right) in this library title's marketability to include a commentary track by star Wagner, or a least some feature on the film's production history, and because the sound wasn't remixed for 4.0, but if you're a fan of such films I highly recommend this DVD.
Movie Review: Could have been so much better . . .
Summary: 3 Stars
The "Prince Valiant" series (taken from the comics section of the newspaper) could be the basis for a great action movie. This version, starring a young Robert Wagner in a "really" bad page boy wig, is not that movie.
The plot is straight forward. Valiant's father lost his kingdom to the evil pagan Vikings. He and his family are in hiding in King Arthur's England. Valiant is sent to court to become a knight. He befriends and becomes the squire of Sir Gawain. Through his own pig headed stupidity he screws-up everything he touches (romance, friendship, being a squire, etc.) until he finds out that there is a traitor in Arthur's court and the traitor has delivered Valiant's family to the Vikings. Valiant saves the day and all is forgiven.
As much as I wanted to love this movie, I couldn't. The action scenes are well done and the castles and costumes are fine. Unfortunately, the plot, dialogue, acting, etc, all were sub par. The quality of the acting is particularly disappointing given the cast, all of whom are fine actors. The fact that the language and dialogue all sounded more "1950s malt shop" than medieval was certainly part of the problem. (The actors at your local Renaissance Festival all sound better than the one's in this movie . . . and given the quality of "accents and acting" at Renaissance Festivals, that's saying something.)
Unless you are desperate for a "medieval movie" fix or a movies you can laugh at while you watch it, look for something better.