The Sword in the Stone (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1963)
Imdb
Date Watched: 7/23/19
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: The 2nd Animation Hall of Fame, nominated by rauldc14
Rewatch: Yes
Oh yay, more fantasy. More wizards.
Well at least this one looks good.
That's really about the most praise I can give it, though. It's pretty. Not impressively so, mind you, but it's pretty. Everything else is pretty much a laundry list of things that annoy me. Let's start with the songs. There weren't a lot of them, but they were really annoying. Especially Mim's overly long and irritating number. Right up there with the stupid songs was the magical gibberish/spells that Merlin and Mim were casting.
Then there's the characters. Now, I don't necessarily have a problem with bumbling idiots in film. As seen in things like
Meet the Robinsons and
The Emporer's New Groove, such characters can be really endearing and even the most memorable. But when you populate the
entire thing with bumbling idiots, it just doesn't work for me. You got to have at least one smart person to balance it. I facepalmed every time Merlin worked his magic on Arthur, every pointless transformation after pointless transformation - and near death experience after near death experience. Seriously? I'm supposed to believe that guy - who keeps almost getting this kid killed - is the greatest wizard? Yeah, no. The only character I gave even the slightest damn about was the female squirrel that became infatuated with Arthur.
I actually started this movie last night but shut it off about halfway through because I got so annoyed with it. I'll rate it the same as
Wind in the Willows, if only because I can't decide which was more irritating.
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