New Films: Prince Valiant (PG) Director: Anthony Hickox Starring: Edward Fox

Liese Spencer
Saturday 20 December 1997 00:02 GMT
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Adapted from Harold Foster's Arthurian comic strip, this hugely entertaining sword-and-sorcery adventure romps through its medieval myths with a voracious appetite for sight gags, sword fights and wise-cracking anachronisms - "it's the bloody Scots" shouts one of Arthur's knights when the mighty sword Excalibur goes missing.

The story follows winsome Camelot squire Segue as he routs the Vikings, romances Princess Ilene of Wales (the American Katherine Heigl, less a damsel than an accent in distress) and finally raises a paternal twinkle in the eye of Arthur himself (Edward Fox) by returning to his hand Excalibur.

Directed with feverish vigour, the film trundles from one spirited set- piece to the next, never losing momentum as it catalogues a Pythonesque landscape of rowdy inns, Viking camps and castles populated by bondage- clad Viking baddies. Legendary fun.

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