Powerful

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Sword of the Valiant has one sole redeeming quality, and that is the ever charismatic Sean Connery, the material is beneath him, he has very little to do and the green costume and make-up looks ridiculous (in a sort of novelty value way though) but he brings dignity, menace and class to what he has and he was a lot of fun to watch.Unfortunately, that is it for the things that work. Miles O'Keefe is absolutely dreadful in the lead role, too pallid for a hero and the less said about his goofy and too 80s wig the better, and Trevor Howard and Peter Cushing (who were also incredibly talented performers) are shamefully wasted with badly written and underused characters that don't allow them to show off their acting strengths. It really does have to be one of the worst wastes of talent in the history of film. Also wasted are the locations, they are quite nice but one cannot appreciate them when the production is lit so drably, there is next to no sense of the Medieval period, the special effects at their absolute best are shoddy and when the photography is so disorganised and amateurishly uninspired.There is also one of the worst, cheapest-sounding and wildly out of place synthesised music scores in film, that would belong more in a very low-budget 80s cartoon rather than a Medieval fantasy adventure where a more rousing approach is needed, He-Man has been mentioned a few times and that isn't inappropriate. People can say all they want and say that a lot of 80s fantasy-adventure scores were of this nature, but how many other 80s fantasy-adventure film scores sounded this cheesy, with the exception of perhaps Hawk the Slayer? The childish, incredibly awkward-sounding and unfunny script (reminiscent of a rejected comedy), slapdash in editing and limply choreographed action, amateurish direction and lifeless and at times annoying characters are further problems, but it was the story that stuck out as particularly bad. There is no sense of time or place, it's very rarely exciting and very little of it makes an ounce of sense. Instead it reads of a series of scenes from different medieval tales cobbled together with no relevance to one another, giving it a disjointed at best and incoherent at worst feel.Overall, an awful film apart from Connery, and it would be high up in the list of films that wasted its talent the worst. 1/10 Bethany Cox

This is hilariously bad,which is some sort of reason to bother seeing it.The charisma free O'Keefe struggles to play an Arthurian knight, Sir Gawain, but no more so than the rest of a distinguished cast, including Sean Connery as the Green Knight.Connery looks embarrassed throughout, as well he might. It is a mishmash of Arthurian legend, medieval history and myth quite lavishly shot, but the giveaway is the producers - the Golem Brothers, makers of more cinematic rubbish than probably anybody else in the history of cinema, providers of homes for actors on the slide. Connery's career was in one of its troughs at the time. The miracle is he climbed out of it to become the sexiest man in the world. Not even Michael Caine could have made a worse career choice.

Golan and Globus are known for low-budget "trying hard" spectaculars out to make money, not win awards so I was bit leery when I went to see this movie. To my surprise it turned out to be good. Some of my favorite British actors were in it like Trevor Howard, Peter Cushing and of course, Sean Connery. Golan and Globus were right when they insisted on Miles O'Keefe over Mark Hamill who was the choice of director Stephen Weeks. With Hamil, people would have unjustly compared this movie with Star Wars. And as it turned out, Hamill was a one-shot wonder (three shots, actually with the Star Wars Trilogy). I remember him starring in a cheap sci-fi flick the advertising for which was a Star Wars rip-off while the plot was a Terminator rip-off. It bombed of course. Miles O'Keefe did very well exuding youthful daring with self-deprecating humor.In any case, Arthurian legend purists need not grouse about the fact that Sword of the Valiant mixes the stories of Sir Gawain (the Green Knight story is his), Sir Owein (the Lady of Lyonesse) and Sir Percival (the encounter with a knight in red armor). It's like shooting three birds with one stone and should motivate people to read up on Mallory et al. Besides, the movie is really a merry mix of adventure, action, comedy and romance. In Filipino, we call this "halo-halo," literally "mix-mix" used to describe an iced dessert with sweet beans, custard, gelatin, roasted young rice, tapioca, coconut strands, banana, jackfruit and what have you. Gawain's relationship with Linet is suitably romantic and knightly (that is, chaste). The mysterious character Linet is aptly portrayed by Cyrielle Claire whose beauty is of fairy tale quality.Despite the daunting looks of the Dowager Lady of Lyonesse, she has a rollicking sense of humor. When Gawain slew the Black Knight in fair duel, he became the Lord Protector of Lyonesse. But that was not his only inherited duty as the Lady of Lyonesse coyly pointed out. You should hear the way she said it.Sean Connery is suitably menacing. Trevor Howard, as the almost senile King Arthur didn't have much time to act; likewise Peter Cushing but their presence lent weight to the film.

Abysmal screen adaptation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" which not only frequently abandons the source material but is devoid of any of its themes or meanings. The result is a strictly one-dimensional swords and sandal shambles which fatally chooses to take itself seriously. Miles O'Keefe is as bland as one can be in the role of Gawain whilst the action sequences are staged totally without panache or energy. The sole highlight (for me, anyway) among the mess was Sean Connery's lively portrayal of the Green Knight yet its not enough to rescue the movie. Overall, the whole thing is a sorry excuse for a film production and (considering its release in an era where action-adventure was being taken to new heights through "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones") one has to wonder what the filmmakers ever saw in it.