New Films: Prince Valiant Directed by Anthony Hickox (PG)

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 anachronistic wise-cracks - "it's the bloody Scots" shouts one of Arthur's knights when the mighty sword Excalibur goes missing, sparking a misdirected Civil War.

The story follows winsome Camelot squire Segue (Stephen Moyer) 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 (Edward Fox) himself by returning to his hand Excalibur.

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

Incidental pleasures along the way include Joanna Lumley's Morgan Le Fey chewing up the scenery in black eye-liner and a smart chainmail wig, and an Eastern harem in a Viking castle. As she's thrown into this den of iniquity, scantily clad maidens introduce themselves to Ilene, "I'm Monday, I'm Tuesday, I'm Wednesday - and You're Thursday", to which the feisty heroine replies, "but that's today!"