Word: comically
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Good vs. Evil is in. Since they perceived the "national mood" as desperate, the studios give us heroes and Super-heroes restoring order to chaos. The champions of American mythology--comic book characters--are back in action. Blond-haired, blue-eyed Flash Gordon battles sinister Orientals in outer space. Superman defends Truth, Justice, and the American Way. The public wants the old heroes, the old stories: ancient themes provide the grist for almost all American movies. Whether this does indeed say anything important about America's collective unconscious is an elastic point, and one easily stretched to banality...
This perceived national mood, combined with the basic human fascination with myth, has prompted some of the most successful of the new pseudo-mythical, comic book adventure films. Star Wars bears similarities to several ancient myths, including the Arthurian legend (note the parallels between Luke Skywalker and Arthur, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Merlin, etc.) and it seemed only a matter of time until a major studio would turn to an original tale and package it as a suped-up blockbuster. Whatever the social or corporate logic behind its conception. Boorman has made Excalibur an exhilirating, hugely entertaining film...
...other performers fail to find Williamson's easy balance of comic and serious. Nigel Terry, as Arthur, is solemn throughout, and never believable as the inspiration of a people. As his wicked half-sister. Morgana, Helen Mirren is appropriately fiendish. Cheri Lunghix is a competent Guenevere, but Nicholas Clay's Lancelot is a semi-comatose pretty...
...settle for smaller favors and find out just how small they are. The Kan-der-Ebb music and lyrics are amiable but pallid. Still, they do offer some comic relief. In It Isn 't Working and / Told You So, Tess's secretary (Roderick Cook) and her maid (Grace Keagy) team up to pepper below-the-salt potshots at Tess and Sam's splintering love life. The evening's high spot consists of Tess and a humble housewife (Marilyn Cooper) agreeing that The Grass Is Always Greener - a lowlife, high-life duet. Cooper makes this sequence...
There is certainly comic potential in Jonathan Lemkin's black and white, three-dimensional wood-carving set, with three great, storybook houses rising out of a gorgeously detailed back-drop. But Alex Begin's harsh, bright lighting makes the set seem stark, even Beckettian. It comes to life only during an imaginative sunset-to-sunrise sequence in the second act, acquiring magical, mysterious depth. Valerie Hobb's colorful, deliriously clashing costumes also don't take the light particularly well--they look as if they could use a sprinkle of MSG to bring them out. But they are stuffed with modest...