Yes, this is a bad movie. Very bad, actually. Most of the script is garbage and it does no justice either to the original Gawain and the Green Knight poem or to Chrétien de Troyes' Ywain (or Owain). However, it's far from being the worst movie ever made, and latent somewhere in the badness there is at least an acceptable adventure film. Or might be.<br /><br />I mean, the film looks pretty good (it was shot by Freddie Young) and benefits from the use of real castles instead of fake-looking sets. And Connery's Green Knight is quite a sight. His costume has received a lot of scorn, yet I find it impressive. Sir Sean is aware of being in a bad movie and just has fun with his supervillain part (remember when he used to do so instead of his non-acting nowadays?), which is the best role in the film, and transmits said fun to the audience.<br /><br />I wish director Stephen Weeks would take back and recut the film. He'd have a lot of work to do, yet he could come up with something decent (apparently a lot of footage was cut, maybe part of it is worthwhile, maybe not). I would actually like Mr. Weeks to read this comment and think about it, maybe for a future DVD edition to replace the indefensible MGM Pan and Scan botch job from 2004 (If anyone reading this can contact Mr. Weeks, please feel free to pass these lines to him). Here's a list of what should be cut:<br /><br />-As much silliness as possible. That awful, childish and really unfunny humor is what really sinks the movie and turns it into a retarded cousin of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Gone should be the toilet jokes, the goofy fights, the "Don't you see I'm playing" moment with Rhys-Davies, the inept sidekick who kills the wrong knight... You get the idea.<br /><br />-All scenes featuring Morgan La Fay. Not only the character serves no purpose in the story, but she looks terribly anachronistic (notice the painted fingernails, not to mention her circus tent) and her scene with Connery makes the Green Knight appear less majestic, less supernatural and less powerful. And her toad form is just ridiculous. Get rid of all that and make the fight against the Black Knight the first of Gawain's adventures.<br /><br />-The fight scene with the Black Knight's empty armor. Hey, it's 2005 now, there's no longer need to shamelessly rip "The Empire Strikes Back" off, is there? Plus, it features the aforementioned toad.<br /><br />-The epilogue. It was the most "huh?" coda ever to a film until the live-action "Dungeons & Dragons" (a movie that, unlike this one, has absolutely zero redeeming features) came along.<br /><br />-There's nothing to do about the casting of Miles O'Keeffe as Gawain or his pathetic wig, but at least a couple of shots where he makes an awful ape-like face (one of them during the fight against Ronald Lacey) should disappear.<br /><br />-Contrary to popular opinion, I do like parts of the music score (particularly the main theme and the one in the scene where Gawain re-encounters Linet, which gets reprised at the end of the closing credits). However, I do think it should be re-orchestrated, to make it sound less computerized and low-budget, and add spectacularity to the images. Still, it's better than your average James Horner...<br /><br />I realize that the excision of these elements would not make a masterpiece out of this baby. Yet, complete with the possible reinsertion of any worthwhile cut scenes that could exist, it might become an entertaining adventure movie with good pacing (which currently, at 102 minutes, it totally lacks), not boring, not intelligence-insultingly silly, and worth watching for any medieval buffs such as myself. Unfortunately, in its current form, yes, it pretty much sucks. 3/10.