Product Details

• Actors: Eric Stoltz, Gabriel Byrne, Nicola Cowper, Dexter Fletcher, Deborah Moore
• Directors: Franklin J. Schaffner
• Writers: Menno Meyjes, Richard Outten
• Producers: Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Schwartzman, Stanley O'Toole, Talia Shire
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: July 7, 1994
• Run Time: 104 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301648803
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #275,109 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

A young knight set out to join King Richard's crusaders comes across a black prince who trades in slave children. The knight promises to save the children and lead them to safety.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Different Version of the Children's Crusade, January 7, 2000

By 

Zorikh Lequidre "Zorikh" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lionheart [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This movie can be interpreted as the triumph of a righteous dream over many obstacles. Our Hero wants to join King Richard the Lionheart (hence the title) on crusade. His father wants him to remain at home. He is brought to a battle and realizes the horror of war, and winds up getting lost. No longer having his father to hold him back, he tries to find King Richard on his own and soon has a following of children, each with their own special talents. They triumph over various obstacles, most significantly a former crusader knight who has lost his faith and wants to capture the kids and sell them into slavery. There is a predictable showdown and feel-good reconciliation at the end.

The idea of a children's crusade is based on true history, but the real story wasn't quite as pleasant. There is a character of a young woman who wants to be a knight and wins a tournament. While there are examples of warrior women in history, this particular character seems based more on the modern Tatum O'Neal in "Bad News Bears" concept.

The costumes and armor, for the most part, only slightly resemble period patterns. The one-on-one fights are alright as such things go, but the battle scene seems oddly half-hearted. When we finally get to meet King Richard, for some reason we never get a good look at him. We hear his voice and watch the people watching him, we see him in a long shot, and one medium-profile, but why, if this is the guy we've been waiting for, don't we get a good payoff, like in "Robin Hood" or "Ivanhoe"?

These weaknesses kept the movie from really appealing to me much. The film maker's message that if you really believe in something and follow that belief it will all turn out right in the end does come through, but it does force an ending that seemes a little trite. I imagine younger and less demanding audiences will find it enjoyable enough and absorb that message.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting failure undone by bad casting and editing, August 7, 2005

By 

Burrobaggy (Newcastle, home of footie) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lionheart [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Lionheart - The Children's Crusade was an interesting find in a bargain bin at a video shop - a medieval epic that I'd never even heard of from the director of Patton, produced by Coppola and with music by Jerry Goldsmith. Looking it up on the IMDb, not many others have either: it only seems to have played a week in Detroit! Why? Well, the obvious reason is it's not very good.

Its got a solid script about a disgraced young French knight who finds himself leading a bunch of abandoned children to the Holy Land to join King Richard's crusade and coming up against Gabriel Byrne's disillusioned crusader turned child-slave-trader. But it often looks like chunks are missing, and the kids are pretty awful: Eric Stoltz very effeminate and uncharismatic as the lead, Dexter Fletcher irritating as the lovable Artful Dodger type and Nicola Cowper a one-woman petrified forest as the love interest - I've never, ever seen an actress stay as rigidly immobile or as impervious to emotion as this gal. It's like watching a beautifully made up corpse in early rigor mortis for 105 minutes. Only Deborah Moore seems to give it a bit of wellie as a tomboyish female whose far more manly than the hero.

Bits of it do work, and Byrne's dark knight character is genuinely interesting and gets all the best dialogue, but the main interest is Jerry Goldsmith's astonishingly good score, one of the best I've ever heard for an epic even if it disappears towards the end. Worth a look but set expectations on low.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you like swords and fantasy you will like this!, June 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Lionheart [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Lion Heart is no Excalibur or Braveheart but it is still one of the few good medieval/fantasy movies out there. Gabriel Byrne plays the Black Prince. The actor who portrayed Sir Lancelot in Excalibur is in this movie also.