Plot.
Merlin the magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the round 
table of Camelot even as forces conspire to tear it apart. According to 
reports from the set, director John Boorman commandeered the Arthurian 
adventure Excalibur in the manner of a medieval war lord, expecting his cast 
and crew to figuratively die with swords in hand if need be. As a result, 
everyone in the film looks as though he or she is prepared to slit the throat 
of anyone who looks at them cross-eyed. Nigel Terry stars as the idealistic 
King Arthur, whose establishment of the idyllic Camelot does not take into 
account the fact that others are not as noble or altruistic as he is. The 
fly in the ointment is the covetous Morgana (Helen Mirren), who sets the 
wheels of Camelot's destruction in motion by bringing Arthur's attention to 
the love affair between Queen Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi) and Sir Lancelot 
(Nicholas Clay). Props essential to the action are the elusive Holy Grail, 
and of course, the magical Excalibur sword. Far removed from the prettiness 
of the musical Camelot, Excalibur is set amidst the mud and maggots of 
Boorman's grim (and occasionally erotic) vision of pre-Norman England. Thomas 
Malory's Morte D'Arthur is listed as the source material for Excalibur, but, 
as is customary with Boorman, there is plenty of embroidering on the original