Excalibur (4K UHD Review)
Director
John BoormanRelease Date(s)
1981 (February 24, 2025)Studio(s)
Ardmore Studios/Cinema ‘84/Orion Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures (Arrow Video)- Film/Program Grade: A
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: A+
Review
[Editor’s Note: The film review here is by Bill Hunt. The disc A/V and extras review is by Tim Salmons.]
John Boorman’s Dark Ages fantasy, Excalibur, is a largely faithful (if much condensed) retelling of the medieval Arthurian legend, based on its most popular and well-known form, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur—one of the first books ever published (after the Gutenberg Bible) in 1485, based on stories that had been handed down orally for generations. Since its release in 1981, the film has also become a classic of genre cinema.
The film opens with the sword Excalibur falling into the hands of a would-be king, Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne). The wizard Merlin (Nicol Williamson) helped him to acquire it, and its power should unite the warlords of sub-Roman Britain under a single banner. There’s just one problem: Right after Uther strikes a deal with his enemy that makes him king, he falls in lust with the man’s wife. The truce, of course, crumbles to pieces, but Uther demands that Merlin cast a spell, allowing him to have the woman for one night, an act that is his downfall. Merlin takes possession of the child that results, and the kingdom falls into disarray, as the warlords once again vie for control. As his final act, Uther plunges Excalibur into a stone to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Only a true and rightful king will be able to remove it, and thereby claim the throne of England.
As the years pass, Uther’s son Arthur (Nigel Terry) grows into a young man, having been raised by a knight. While attending a joust with his father and brother, in which warlords compete for the right to try for Excalibur, Arthur accidentally pulls the sword himself. An amazed crowd can’t believe that a boy has succeeded where far more powerful men have failed, and no one is more surprised than Arthur. But Merlin appears and confirms that Arthur is the rightful king. And after a brief dispute, the kingdom unites around him. Arthur creates the round table, and the glorious days of Camelot ensue. But this pesky love business—which is beyond Merlin’s ability to grasp—soon proves trouble once again.
Arthur takes as his Queen the lady Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi), but not long after the wedding, she falls for his best friend and greatest knight, Lancelot (Nicholas Clay). While Lancelot prides his virtue, he’s only human and is unable to resist his own feelings for the Queen. Arthur learns of the affair, but loves them both too much to kill them, so he plunges Excalibur into the ground between them, bereft. As he falls into a deep despair, Lancelot and Guenevere go their separate ways in shame, and the kingdom decays. Unable to recover from his grief, Arthur believes there is but one hope for the future. So he sends his remaining knights on a quest to find the Holy Grail, whose elixir might cure him and thus restore England to its glory.
Boorman’s version of the fabled legend is a visually lavish and stylish production, mounted on little more than a shoestring budget by today’s standards. But it’s a bit quirky as well. The film’s stylized titles, filtered soft focus, pools of colored light in select scenes, and shots of nighttime castles with lightning flashing all around—much of it would seem at home in an episode of the original Star Trek. Yet somehow, it all just works. Featuring lush cinematography by Alex Thomson (whose diverse body of work includes Jesus Christ Superstar, The Keep, Legend, Labyrinth, and David Fincher’s Alien³), Excalibur is nothing if not a feast for the eyes. A shot of Arthur and his knights, clad in shining armor and riding through a blizzard of apple blossom petals, remains iconic and stirring to this day.
Excalibur’s soundtrack is equally good, featuring classical pieces by Richard Wagner and Carl Orff, along with an original underscore by Trevor Jones. The actors’ performances have an oddly stilted quality that’s full of bluster and pomp, and yet is well suited to this material. Nigel Terry is magnificent as Arthur, deftly portraying his life from a bumbling teen to a war-weary old man. Nicol Williamson couldn’t have been more perfect as Merlin. And the film boasts a terrific supporting cast, including the ravishing Helen Mirren (as Arthur’s half-sister Morgana, aka Morgan le Fay), and some of the earliest film appearances by Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Ciarán Hinds, and the aforementioned Gabriel Byrne.
Excalibur was clearly a labor of love for Boorman, as he explains in the director’s commentary. It’s a film he’d been talking about making for years before he finally made the attempt. A student of the legends’ many forms, Boorman collaborated closely with architect and writer Rospo Pallenberg on the screenplay. (Pallenberg would later contribute the script for Boorman’s The Emerald Forest, and would doctor the screenplays for Deliverance, Zardoz, and Exorcist II: The Heretic.) Much of the film was shot within a few miles of the director’s home in Ireland. And several of his children appear in it, though it’s hard to know what to make of this: One of his daughters plays a character who gets raped onscreen, while another is made to lie underwater (posing as the Lady of the Lake). Boorman’s son Charley also plays the young Mordred.
Excalibur was shot by Alex Thomson on 35 mm film (using Arriflex 35 BL3 cameras with Canon and Cooke spherical lenses) and finished photochemically. Arrow Video debuts the film on Ultra HD with a new 4K 16-bit scan and restoration from the original camera negative, using additional 35 mm prints from Warner Bros. and the BFI as a reference. The results were QC’d by Pixelogic, graded for High Dynamic Range in HDR10 and Dolby Vision, authored by David Mackenzie of Fidelity in Motion, and encoded for a triple-layered BD-100 disc. Arrow’s presentation also debuts the film in Boorman’s preferred 1.66:1 framing, whereas all previous widescreen home video versions were in either 1.78:1 or 1.85:1.
It’s a masterfully executed restoration. Thomson’s cinematography—combined with the lavish sets and costumes—was always meant to give the film an otherworldly quality, using soft filters and unusual color schemes and lighting, lending it a truly fantastic appearance. This is preserved here skillfully, with heavy grain that resolves beautifully, and a bit rate that averages 80 to 100 Mbps. Detail is enhanced with sharper and more precise delineation and increased depth in the shadows. The HDR grade widens the color gamut to allow for much bolder swatches of red, green, blue, and purple, as well as deep blacks with perfect contrast. Even the silvers and golds seen in Camelot are more vibrant, but in a way that’s organic and natural to the film’s intended look. The image is stable and clean overall, and note that optically-printed fades and transitions have been redone digitally. This is a marvelous UHD upgrade that excels in all of the right ways.
English audio is included in both the original theatrical mono and 5.1 surround (created using the mono mix elements) in DTS-HD Master Audio format, with optional subtitles in English SDH. During the audio restoration, unfinished LCRS audio elements (left, center, right, surround) created during post-production were discovered by Warner Bros. However, these were abandoned due to time constraints and ultimately deemed unusable. So even though a surround mix was in Boorman’s mind back in 1981, it was never completed (and those original elements were not utilized for the new 5.1 mix).
In any case, the original theatrical mono trounces the 5.1 with a much fuller sonic experience that lends the various elements better definition. The 5.1 mix is far too wide, spacing out the soundstage and giving it a hollow quality to the point where it comes off as flat by comparison. Both tracks are clean, with fine support for dialogue, though the mono supports its music and sound effects better. A hypothetical Dolby Atmos mix, possibly created from those unused LCRS elements, might have improved the audio selections here but was not to be.
The Arrow Video 3-disc 4K Ultra HD release of Excalibur contains a single UHD and two 1080p Blu-rays in a black Amaray case with six double-sided reproduction art cards and a double-sided insert, featuring the US theatrical poster artwork on one side and the UK theatrical quad poster artwork on the other. Also included is a double-sided poster featuring the same artwork options and a 120-page insert booklet containing cast and crew information, the essays Gone to Earth by Philip Kemp, A Dream to Some, a Nightmare to Others by Jez Winship, Medievalism in Excalibur by K.A. Laity, Strange Portents, Peculiar Signs, and a Wicked Pack of Cards by Kimberly Lindbergs, The Land, Magic, and Dream: Excalibur’s Exploration of the Real and Unreal by Icy Sedgwick, “You and the Land are One”: John Boorman’s Mythical Nature by Josh Nelson, The Sound in the Stone: The Music of Excalibur by Charlie Brigden, Mythic Roots: A Guide to the Characters of Excalibur by John Reppion, restoration details, production credits, and special thanks. All of this material is housed in sturdy slipbox packaging featuring the aforementioned US theatrical poster artwork. The following extras are included on each disc:
DISC ONE: UHD (THEATRICAL CUT)
- Audio Commentary by John Boorman
- Audio Commentary by Brian Hoyle
- Audio Commentary by David Kittredge
DISC TWO: BD (EXTRAS)
- The Making of Excalibur: Myth Into Movie (HD – 48:19)
- To Be a Knight and Follow a King (HD – 28:12)
- When Death Was but a Dream (HD – 25:07)
- The Charm of Making (HD – 26:11)
- Confessions of a Professional “Pain-in-the-Arse” (HD – 75:44)
- Anam Cara: A Consideration of Rospo Pallenberg & John Boorman (HD – 37:34)
- Divided Nature: The Death & Life of Illusion in the Cinematic Kingdom of John Boorman (HD – 30:07)
- Trailers:
- Teaser Trailer (HD – 1:48)
- Theatrical Trailer (Upscaled SD – 2:28)
- Image Galleries:
- Black & White Stills (98 in all)
- Colour Stills (101 in all)
- Posters (26 in all)
- Original Production Notes (22 in all)
- Draft Screenplay (116 in all)
DISC THREE: BD (TV VERSION)
- TV Version (HD – 120:09)
- Excalibur: Behind the Movie (HD – 52:24)
John Boorman’s 1999 DVD audio commentary can sometimes be sparse due to the lack of a moderator, but he more than makes up for it with some fascinating information about the making of the film. It’s an excellent track overall. New to this edition are two more commentaries: one with Brian Hoyle, author of The Cinema of John Boorman, and the other with filmmaker David Kittredge, director of the 2025 documentary Boorman and the Devil. The Brian Doyle track avidly and expertly covers many aspects of the film, including its literary sources, its use of music, Boorman’s stylistic and filmmaking choices, the careers and contributions of the cast and crew, production details, and various analyses of the story and its characters. The David Kittredge track is a bit repetitive by comparison, but it does focus a little more on the breadth of John Boorman’s career, specifically on the fallout after the failure of Exorcist II: The Heretic, while also highlighting many moments in the film and varying aspects of the production.
Almost all of the video-based material is brand new to home video. The Making of Excalibur: Myth Into Movie is a previously unreleased documentary made by Neil Jordan while the film was in production and post-production. Boorman provides a thematic overview of his filmmaking career in relation to Excalibur as well as his intentions for it, while also featuring a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes footage and on and off-set interviews with various cast and crew. There are even glimpses of the original opening shoot in which Merlin was sporting a cleanly-shaven face at the time of filming. Needless to say, it’s an absolute gem. To Be a Knight and Follow a King features new interviews with director John Boorman and his son, actor Charley Boorman. Boorman is obviously quite old at the time of the interview, but his memories and humor are still as sharp as ever, providing his recollections of the experience of Excalibur. Halfway through the interview, his son Charley walks in unexpectedly to talk about his own work in the film, as well as his father’s legacy. When Death Was but a Dream interviews Neil Jordan who talks about his path to becoming a filmmaker and eventually working with John Boorman, shooting the documentary, and exploring the irrational and fantastic in their work. The Charm of Making features an interview with production designer Anthony Pratt who talks about his work on both Zardoz and Excalibur, highlighting cinematographer Alex Thomson as a valuable collaborator. Confessions of a Professional “Pain-in-the-Arse” is an extended interview with second unit director Peter MacDonald, which was recorded remotely via Skype, and provides a massive life and career overview, highlighting many of his projects, including his work with Boorman.
Anam Cara is a visual essay by Howard S. Berger containing a new interview with co-writer Rospo Pallenberg. Berger provides a background on both Boorman and Pallenberg and their working relationship before it was severed, prior to the actual interview. Divided Nature is another visual essay, this time by “The Flying Maciste Brothers,” aka film historians Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr, which delves more into Boorman’s thematics, chiefly the struggle of human beings to make sense of the world, what lies beyond it, and the chaos they create inside of it. Many examples from his work are provided. Next is the film’s Teaser Trailer and Theatrical Trailer, and a set of Image Galleries containing a total of 363 images of black & white and color behind-the-scenes photographs, posters, productions notes, and a draft of the screenplay.
The TV Version of the film was created for its network television premiere on CBS on July 16th, 1985. Needless to say, it was severely cut—by over twenty minutes—softening much of the sex and violence, but also featuring some unique voiceover from Merlin. It’s reconstructed here using the new 4K restoration as a basis, with only a single shot upscaled from standard definition, and presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio with optional subtitles in English SDH. Excalibur: Behind the Movie aka Behind the Sword in the Stone is a 2013 documentary by Alex Moore and Mark Wright that aired on PBS and features interviews with John Boorman, Neil Jordan, actors Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Patrick Stewart, Paul Geoffrey, Cherie Lunghi, Charley Boorman, Katrine Boorman, Clive Swift, armorer Terry English, third assistant director John Lawlor, location manager Kevin Moriarty, and composer Trevor Jones.
For all of its quirks, one must acknowledge John Boorman’s Excalibur for what it is and what it remains—the preeminent telling of the legend of King Arthur captured on film to date. Both Warner MPI’s 4K scan and Arrow Video’s A/V restoration are marvels, and the label has assembled a terrific package of bonus content, containing both new and legacy material. At long last, this is the special edition the film deserves!
It must also be noted that Excalibur is simply among the first of many great Warner Bros. deep catalog titles that have recently been licensed to Arrow Video. So if this release is any indication, 4K Ultra HD fans have much to look forward from the boutique label in 2026 and beyond. Very highly recommended!
- Bill Hunt and Tim Salmons
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