I only had very vague recollections of this movie until I watched it again just recently and I've decided this is kind of an underrated film.
I'm not all that familiar with the original story of the Sword in the Stone aside from the obvious more famous bits but I imagine the story guys on this movie took a lot of liberties. When it comes right down to it the plot is little more than a lot of fluff to fill running time until Arthur AKA Wart gets to the sword. Fluff or not though the film's entertaining enough and allows for the great animation that I found to be the stand out quality here.
I'm an animator myself so maybe this means more to me than the average audience, but the character animation on Merlin and Madam Mim can easily go head to head with Disney's more highly regarded classics and the use of effects is remarkable (in classical animation, effects refer to any animation that's not a character i.e. water, smoke, fire, dust etc.) Everything from rain storms to pixy dust is masterly handled and adds a whole layer of wonder to the whole thing. The highlight for me was a showdown between Merlin and Mim in which they morph into a variety of creatures to battle one another and no morph looks the same twice.
This is just light hearted entertainment. It's definitely geared more for kids but if you're an animation fan it's worth watching for that alone.
I'm not all that familiar with the original story of the Sword in the Stone aside from the obvious more famous bits but I imagine the story guys on this movie took a lot of liberties. When it comes right down to it the plot is little more than a lot of fluff to fill running time until Arthur AKA Wart gets to the sword. Fluff or not though the film's entertaining enough and allows for the great animation that I found to be the stand out quality here.
I'm an animator myself so maybe this means more to me than the average audience, but the character animation on Merlin and Madam Mim can easily go head to head with Disney's more highly regarded classics and the use of effects is remarkable (in classical animation, effects refer to any animation that's not a character i.e. water, smoke, fire, dust etc.) Everything from rain storms to pixy dust is masterly handled and adds a whole layer of wonder to the whole thing. The highlight for me was a showdown between Merlin and Mim in which they morph into a variety of creatures to battle one another and no morph looks the same twice.
This is just light hearted entertainment. It's definitely geared more for kids but if you're an animation fan it's worth watching for that alone.