Excalibur (film)
When first released in the United Kingdom in 1981, the film ran to 140m 30s, and was classified as a "AA" by the BBFC, restricting it to those aged 14 and over. In 1982, the BBFC replaced the "AA" certificate with the higher age-specific "15", which was also applied to "Excalibur" when released on home video.
Excalibur (film)
Roger Ebert called it both a "wondrous vision" and "a mess." Elaborating further, Ebert said the film was "a record of the comings and goings of arbitrary, inconsistent, shadowy figures who are not heroes but simply giants run amok. Still, it's wonderful to look at." Vincent Canby said that while Boorman took Arthurian myths seriously, "he has used them with a pretentiousness that obscures his vision." In her review in "The New Yorker", Pauline Kael said the film had its own "crazy integrity", adding that the imagery was "impassioned" with a "hypnotic quality". According to her, the dialogue, however, was "near-atrocious". She concluded by saying that ""Excalibur" is all images flashing by... We miss the dramatic intensity that we expect the stories to have, but there's always something to look at."