“Dragons of Camelot felt just like a fan film more than anything else. A real disappointment, even when compared to releases from the likes of ‘The Asylum.'”
by Nav Qateel
On his deathbed, King Arthur tasks his stepson, Sir Galahad, with finding his real father, Sir Lancelot. Arthur’s sister, the evil Morgan, is a witch, and she’s taking over Camelot using her three dragons. Lancelot is needed to prevent this from happening. Galahad goes on a quest to find his father, then return to Camelot and take it back by force.
I haven’t seen anything by director Mark L. Lester since the early 90’s, and I’ve always known he liked to do cheesy movies. He appeared to peak in the 80’s, with cinema classics such as Class of 1984, Commando and Firestarter.
- Dragons of Camelot
- Directed by
Mark L. Lester - Cast
Alexandra Evans, Mark Griffin, James Nitti - Release Date
December 2014 - Nav’s Grade: D+
*****
This is what Roger Ebert had to say back in 1982 about Lester’s first real hit, Class of 1984: “Class of 1984 is raw, offensive, vulgar, and violent, but it contains the sparks of talent and wit, and it is acted and directed by people who cared to make it special.” (Link) I wish I had something like that to say about Dragons of Camelot. But I don’t. Not even close.
If you take a look at the cover art for Dragons of Camelot, you’ll see it has knights in shining armor battling dragons. I definitely saw three not too badly rendered dragons, but the only knight with anything resembling armor was Sir Ekhart, and he was barely in the film. The costumes were good, but like everything else in this film, it was all too clean and tidy, none of which helped create a sense of realism.
Overall, the acting was patchy but there were a couple of performances that stood out, like Sandra Darnell as she gave it her all playing Morgan Le Fay, Arthur’s evil sister. Dragons of Camelot felt just like a fan film more than anything else. A real disappointment, even when compared to releases from the likes of ‘The Asylum.’ If you don’t demand a lot from a film, and you enjoy cheesy period flicks, you actually might like Dragons of Camelot. Or not.
