These Kushner-Locke kidvids shot in Romania need to be assessed the same way that home appraisers assign value to a home; in addition to an objective assessment of the specific movie’s merits, you have to compare it to its comparable surroundings and see where it fits in in the community. In this case, The Excalibur Kid’s nearest neighbors are Teen Knight (1998) and Johnny Mysto: Boy Wizard (1997), produced by the same people under the same conditions, all three of them dealing with modern teens transported back in time to medieval periods. Johnny Mysto and The Excalibur Kid even have an Arthurian flavor in common. Compared with these other likely suspects in a lineup, The Excalibur Kid comes off pretty well. But I would have to say that see The Excalibur Kid after Teen Knight and Johnny Mysto is the only way to make it look good.
Nathan Shumate is the proprietor of Cold Fusion Video Reviews and the publisher of Cold Fusion Media.
#1 by Braineater on August 15th, 2010
Wow! How very, uhhh… familiar. Seems to me the only “Pulsepounders” involved in a Kushner-Locke production are the paramedics performing CPR on the audience after they die of boredom.
I wonder: are the Romanian locations still as cheap to film in? Because I have an idea for a movie: it’s about a hard-working but Bad Movie-obsessed dad whose search for dreadful flicks leads him to a VHS tape of the Lost Charles Band Video. But the tape has a curse on it: when his charming and photogenic kids accidentally watch the movie first, they get sucked into the world of Kushner-Locke. It’s up to him to get them out before the rapidly-deteriorating tape finishes playing… or else his poor kids will be stuck making the same basic script over and over again for all eternity. And — horrors! — he’ll be forced to review them.
I even have some casting ideas.
#2 by Nathan Shumate on August 15th, 2010
Insidious! However, my children have learned their lesson; they NEVER watch these things with me anymore. Not since Train Quest.
#3 by El Santo on August 16th, 2010
So basically, you’re saying that your kids are already smarter than you?
#4 by Nathan Shumate on August 16th, 2010
No, they’re just not as perfectly suited to be Lovecraftian protagonists as I am.