Merlin

Rating:
Summary: good
Review: I liked this movie, I first saw it on tv, and have been searching everywhere for it. The dialogue is a bit cheesy, and there is a little too much gore, but the magic was lovely. I only wish they showed the little fairy-elves more.

Rating:
Summary: Merlin's New Image
Review: I think this movie is a wonderful version of a classical tale. The special effects make it appealing to a new generation and the cast is awesome (especially Helena Bohnam Carter). However what appeals to me most is narration by Merlin which put a new spin on an old story. This movie has everything that a great romance is supposed to have and then some. Although the movie is long, by the end you'll be wishing it wasn't over. It captures your imagination and takes it to a place of magic that we can only dream of.

Rating:
Summary: do you believe in magic
Review: For those who keep up to date on their literare as oppose to movies would notice that the story was not completely actuate but it put the thousands of words we could say about the story of Merlin into a nice 1 video movie. Some say it had too much magic to be believible, but it's the magic that makes the movie part of our imagination. What does Merlin define in our world but the gift to do Magic. The question rarely comes up of how he felt about having magic and how he came upon them. It shows that the greatest fear is forgeting magic, as Mab and the old ways portray. I comes down to how much do you belive in believing. If you crave magic and a fantasy vertion of history, Merlin is right on the money.

Rating:
Summary: Is this Merlin supposed to be a mythology or a comedy?
Review: I laughed throughout the whole movie, because I found it sooo funny. The legends as portrayed here were grossly inaccurate. The bad acting was quite hilarious as the actors seemed to be bumbling through their lines as though they've been hit with a bad case of nitrous oxide or something. Never before has such an assembly of all-star names gathered together to produce such ridiculous poppycock. Almost as ridiculous as Hallmark's other flop, "Noah's Ark". As is expected in Hollywood, shelling out millions of dollars for whatever big name star available wins out, while chemistry with the right personnel hardly ever gets a nod. And, coming soon from Hallmark..."The Lost Chronicles Of Jesus Christ... watch as we show you how Christ parted the Red Sea, how he started a revolution in Russia, and how he later went on to found Micorsoft Corp. Hallmark Entertainment. Entertainment par excellence! Entertainment your way!"

Rating:
Summary: Pathetic!
Review: I will confess right away that I did not watch the entire movie, so maybe it gets 90% better (it would have to to earn that 7.5 rating) after the first 20 minutes, but I seriously doubt it. The thing that killed this movie for me was the terrible acting, the lame dialogue, and the ridiculous and unbelievable events. Can a woman actually wear 1990's Harley Davison attire in the 6th century? Amazing. And I was truly amazed as well to learn that when you thrust a cardboard broadsword like Excalibur into the stone, it will easily penetrate as though it were made out of Titanium. Then there is the young Merlin, played by some yokel who is so uninvolved in what is happening to him that he might have been sleep-walking. He is completely blase about pulling Nimue from the mud. This is supposed to be a holy, awe-inspiring moment; but judging by his response, he may as well have been shoveling manure. He takes everything in stride. His waving his hand around to create spells is less convincing than the Magician from Fox's "Secrets of the Masked Magician" series. He is tutor to a weak and ineffective King Arthur of very little goals or character, and is led into a dark medieval forest filled with "terrifying" snakes and lizards (some of which migrated from a tropical rain forest -- maybe they were carried there by an African Swallow ;^), yet he has virtually no emotional response to any of this. Apparently, it's all a normal day in his life. That this movie is supposedly true to the original Arthurian legend is no excuse for its many glaring flaws and poor production quality. See this only if you have no respect for Arthurian mythology and a high tolerance for stupidity.

Rating:
Summary: Better in a half hour than in 3 hours
Review: When my teacher for English told us that we had to do a project about King Arthur, we thought of making a video that would mock a movie that depicted the story of Arthur in a bad way, and we chose Merlin. I must say that Merlin tells the story in a completely different way than was written in sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur", and some of it seems to be made up. Such as, Morgan Le Fey wearing a 20th century leather costume. Arthur didn't get Excalibur from pulling it out of a stone monster. Oh, and about Merlin... he does not live until the very end, he is trapped (by someone other then the evil Morgana) long before that. Well, enough of stating what is wrong with the movie (there is more, but..), because there seems to be a lot of people who really like it. I will say, though, that once we cut down the movie to about a half hour spliced version of it (instead of 3 hours), it was much better to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Lovely Mordred
Review: A wonderfull film, only with too much magic. It wasn't realistic anymore. The characters Mordred and his aunty Mab were played very well and also the character Merlin. It's a pity that it was so different from the real "King Arthur"-story. All together it was a nicy story, but not as good as Excalibur.

Rating:
Summary: A very hilarious, yet very bad movie!
Review: A very bad, yet very funny movie. I have to admit I found this movie to be extremely silly, with terrible acting, ridiculous dialogue, no plot or continuity, and extreme overuse of stage fog and fake blood. In spite of this...well, actually BECAUSE of this I found this movie to be highly comical. It's unintentionally hilarious, what with the overcting and the bad script and the silly costumes and so on. (Why didn't MST3K ever do this movie?) Then there's the additional fun of picking out well-known people well after they were well-known ("Whoa! Helena Bonham-Carter in modern day 20th century leather biker garb!). And, to give the movie credit, the fight scenes were cool, and the Wagnerian soundtrack is very fitting. If you like cheesy movies, definately see this one. Merlin is supposed to be true to Sir Thomas Malory's "Le Morte D'Arthur". I've read that, and a good deal of Malory's sources that Steve Barron plagerized, and this movie isn't close at all to these tales. True, it has some of the same elements, but then again, so does "Monty Python". Be smart...save your time and money and watch Excalibur instead. Now, that's a high-quality movie about King Arthur, Merlin and company.

Rating:
Summary: The Only Thing I Liked
Review: Must be The Lady of the Lake... she was indeed the most artistic feature in this movie. Her necklace, her appearence, her voice... oh, she was so incredibly well made and acted.

But the rest was more or less childish. Something meant for children.

Rating:
Summary: Bad!
Review: It is beyond my comprehension how such a fine cast would agree to work on something as bad as this. Many of them deliver fine work but don't get much to work with so... This TV-movie suffers mostly from bad script and weak directing. Make better use of your time and money and watch something else, like "Excalibur".