The output of Walt Disney Animation Studios–currently totaling 54 full-length films–has been cherished by audiences young and old for almost 80 years. In this weekly online feature, arts and entertainment editor Nathan Tucker will review and rank each of them.

The Sword in the Stone is the blandest Disney film since the budget-slash of the Forties. It limps towards the titular object with a tedious inevitability, only to collapse within minutes of its de facto climax. The movie is such a poor excuse for escapist fantasy that an audience would be better off escaping from it.

Yet underneath this cinematic dud is the blueprint of a film that shows promise. There is a distinct attempt at character development, with the plot’s structure taking the form of episodic life lessons delivered by Merlin to the young King Arthur. Going through three different animal transformations, the magician and his pupil learn that brains are better than brawn, hearts were made to be broken, and cleverness trumps sorcery.

The first problem is that none of this attempted character development ever pays off: we see Arthur on the throne for a minute and a half before the curtains close and the young king spends that time whining about how he just can’t wait to not be king. He has learned absolutely nothing. The second is that these “life skills” are trite and cliched, obvious and shallow. Overall, this is Disney’s most shabbily plotted feature since Snow White.

While the economical Xerox process serendipitously synchronized with the feel of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, it is utterly out-of-tune with this piece of light fantasy. The scratchy, slightly stilted look pushes the film towards an anachronistically modern mood, which leaks into the dialogue as Merlin’s humorless jokes about skipping off to the Bahamas (“probably some place they haven’t discovered yet,” his pet owl bemoans) and how future people “might even make a motion picture” about Arthur. Groan.

The Sword in the Stone is not atrocious by any means, and is nowhere near Disney’s worst. But there is also nothing in it to recommend, no clever moment that is honestly worth wasting an hour for. This sword is best left in the stone.   

The List:

1. Bambi
2. Sleeping Beauty
3. Lady and the Tramp
4. Alice in Wonderland
5. Fantasia
6. Pinocchio
7. One Hundred and One Dalmatians
8. Peter Pan
9. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
10. Cinderella
11. Dumbo
12. The Sword in the Stone
13. Melody Time
14. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
15. Fun and Fancy Free
16. Saludos Amigos
17. Make Mine Music
18. The Three Caballeros