Merlin

Rating:
Summary: The home video version was CHOPPED!
Review: The original movie was great. I would easily give it 5 stars. However, Hallmark saw fit to cut the movie down to a horrid rag before slapping it on to video tape. A grave wrong doing! In its full glory this movie is spectacular, breathtaking, and simply wonderful. I suggest you find someone who recorded it off of the television and make a copy of the original. Do not bother with this watered down confusing cut.

Rating:
Summary: Another arthurian disappointment.
Review: A wicked case of boredom had me watching this movie on TV. Suffice to say that there would have been more entertainment value had I turned the TV off and watched nothing. Beyond bad from every angle. I don't usually expect much from a movie about Arthur & Merlin with all the other bad ones floating around out there, but _MERLIN_ fails to meet even the lowest standards. Sadly, there hasn't been any good films of this genre made before or since _EXCALIBUR_.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of room for improvement
Review: Not very good Arthurian.. Awesome special effects, but average acting and poor storyline hampers what I consider a very unbalanced film. I tried to be as un-biased and subjective as possible by watching this movie along with `Excalibur' 2 times each, both for the very first time. Excalibur is much better for one simple reason: The filmakers stayed true to form by adhering to traditional sources (Thomas Mallory, Jeffrey of Monmouth, and Chretien de Troyes). We all know that Merlin is supposed to have died, either by being frozen in a cave or trapped under a rock. Instead, Merlin's producers decided to have him fall in love in a Hollywood type romance and live happily ever after. YUCK!!! The original storylines for Merlin is one of the most beautiful of all time and written centuries ago. Director Steve Baron would've created something very worthy in the ranks of `Excalibur' had he followed this simple guideline. But, no.... He had to recycle bits & parts of scripts from `Pretty Woman', `Titanic', and `Meatballs' to create this mess of a so-called `film'. 1 out of 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Simply Awful. Watch 'Excalibur', instead.
Review: There are very few movies that (in my opinion) are not worth $1 which is what I paid to rent this bilge, but this movie certainly makes that cut. I spent a considerable portion of the movie speculating on what prompted a group of (presumably) reasonably intelligent people to make this movie. The sad part was watching Martin Short, an excellent actor, and Sam Neill go though their lines like they were reading aloud from a book. They have zero chemistry together, and the attempt of a romance between Neill & Rossellini is so out of place, as to be excruciatingly painful to watch. I don't think it's funny that they tried to pass this "chick flick" off as a mythological film. That's what Merlin truly is.....a "chick-flick". I guess the producers forgot to watch 'Excalibur' and learn how to make a REAL Arthurian movie before embarking upon Merlin. My suggestion: avoid it at all costs. If someone wants you to watch it with them, get them to pay for your ticket.

Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: I think that the people that write the bad reviews are narrow minded. I mean, there are millions of differant Merlin stories, and this is just one more.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe not authentic, but quite entertaining...
Review: I was perplexed when I read some of the extremely negative reviews.Though the movie definitely takes some liberties with the original Arthuriantales, I found it to be well acted and very entertaining. I thought the special effects were better than any fantasy type movie I've ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: An absolutely appalling film which is about 3 hours too long
Review: I find it difficult to comment on this film because it was so bad. As far as I can see it has no redeeming features at all. Merlin is too long, boring and the special effects aren't really very special. I even consider the outdated special effects of Excalibur from 1981 to be of much higher quality than Merlin (i.e. when the lady of the lake came out of the water in Merlin you could tell that it was computer generated and fake. For the same scene in Excalibur, they had the actress lie submerged under water until she was raised by a hidden hydralic lift with sword in hand. Very detailed and realistic!). In Merlin there is no attempt to develop the characters and the narrative, far from being a great mythological story, is just silly. If the script cost more than 1 pound it was robbery. I saw this with a friend who commented, as the credits revealed "Directed by Steve Barron", .... and he should be thoroughly ashamed of himself. This is the sort of film that makes Europeans despise Hollywood.

Rating:
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: I am a great fan of King Arthur & Merlin and eagerly looked forward to this movie. What a disapointment. This movie had no story, no character developement, and meaningless special effects. What a waste of talented actors.

Rating:
Summary: Abosolutely the worst Arthurian film of all time.
Review: Merlin is the worst Arthurian movie, I think, of all time. It contains boring scenes, wasted acting talent (meaning the greatest actors money can buy on a script worth less than a bottle of water), and unbelivable romances. Young kids who don't read books may enjoy _Merlin_, but this film is way too overrated for all the hype it got prior to its initial airing on NBC. I must admit that the special effects were great, but a movie can't ride on effects alone.... especially when it's almost 4 hours long. I thought it would never end. Even _Excalibur_, which I consider to be far superior than _Merlin_, was a bit too long for me at nearly 2 1/2 hours.

Rating:
Summary: Not even close to Excalibur
Review: This movie is typical of how an American film company takes mythology from other countries and trashes it so bad that the unsuspecting American viewer thinks it's great fun, and that what they're getting is also an education on other cultures. "Merlin" is a travesty to Arthurian legends, which comes as no surprise to me with the US film industry these days- compensating good storylines and acting for the sake of turning out no-brainer SFX marvels. If I wanted to see great special effects, I could easily accomplish the same on my pentium. If you want to witness a great movie on Arthur, then go see John Boorman's Excalibur. Unlike Merlin, Excalibur is another US (Warner) production which is exemplary of what Hollywood used to be capable of, and could be again someday.