Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

I love old movies. I especially love old movies that deal with the Middle ages.. and when they deal with King Arthur it's almost a sure thing that it's going to end up with at least 4 stars from me... almost. I'm afraid Prince Valiant was so incredibly bad that even I can't give it more than 2 stars. In fact, it kinda even made me mad enough to give it 1 star. We'll see where we end up by the end of this.. heh.

First off, I never read the comic series in the Sunday papers growing up. Something about that hair cut just turned me off. Therefore I can't tell you if this followed that at all. Really, it doesn't matter. It wasn't the story so much as the bad acting, costuming, and production values.. well ok partly the story was to blame.

What we have here is the royal family of Skandia being exiled from their homeland by a traitor who has seized the throne. They are taken in and given sanctuary by King Arthur. The Skandian king sends his son, Valiant, to Camelot to train as a knight and gain the skills to one day reclaim the kingdom that is rightfully his. So far so good story-wise... sorta. You see, these are Vikings. Vikings which keep going on about God and the cross. Umm yeah whatever. Christian Vikings....

At any rate, Valiant is a brash and cocky little shit who ends up in various scrapes and predicaments. It's choppy, disjointed and Robert Wagner couldn't act his way out of the stocks back then. Man, I'm tellin you I don't know how he got any acting gigs after this mess. He's way too far over the top even for 1954. His line delivery is down right laughable. It was clear that Wagner had no idea of the time period and who he was suppose to be portraying. I wanted to reach through my screen and slap him.

As if that's not enough, he wore shorts under his little outfit. No, seriously. We're talking modern-day suede shorts with a zippered fly. Down to his knees. Every single time he flipped around, climbed a wall, jumped on a horse, stripped down to just his shorts... there they were, big as hell, reminding us that wardrobe was utterly clueless and couldn't care less. In fact, his entire outfit in the beginning look closer to American Indian than Viking.

Then we have Sterling Hayden (Godfather, Dr. Strangelove) as the goofiest fricken Sir Gawain ever. Again with the horrible, stilted line delivery. Hayden and Wagner aren't alone in this at all though. There were several times words were grossly mispronounced to the point that I cringed. Homage? Anyone have a problem with how that sounds? They did. That isn't the only one they had problems with either.

James Mason as Sir Brack couldn't even pronounce his own brother's name. In this version, you see, he is the bastard half-brother to Uther Pendragon and he wants the throne, damn it. Hell I wouldn't give it to him either if he couldn't even say my name right... To be fair though, Mason did the best job of them all. At least he came off somewhat believable.

This runs 100 minutes and is unrated in the US... as if it matters. Use this one to punish your kids, or spouse. heh.

Here we are at the point that I've wasted far too much time on this piece of dreck. I believe we've settled easily on 1 star and I kinda feel like that is being generous.

Skip it. Rent one of these instead:

Dr. Dev's Definitive King Arthur List

Dr Dev's Favorite Period Fantasy Movies

The 10 Best Classic Medieval/Renaissance Movies




Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD