ltrachael_starfleet Review of Merlin

Merlin (1998)

When it's good, it's very very good; when it's bad it's awful!

[7/10 · 6 August 2006]

I've been reading a lot of the comments, and I actually disagree with most of them. I tend to think that Merlin is an average film, but I don't think that any single part of it is average. It comes out as average because it has some aspects which are amazingly brilliant, and others that are horrifyingly awful. The character of Morgan le Fay is a prime example. On the whole, she is very sympathetic, because of how Uther raped her mother and killed her father, but they make her a little too comedic in bits. The lisp really is overdone. On the other hand, her dying scene with Frik is arguably the most affecting scene in the entire film. Now, the special effects are nothing great, but I'll skip over those; they were fine for a 1998 made-for-TV movie, and as such, really shouldn't be judged harshly. The story at times becomes rather far-fetched and somewhat cheesy (the bit with the Mountain King kind of made me grit my teeth). The story also has trouble hanging together (probably because it was originally a mini-series) and some of the dialogue is annoying. The whole Mab thing seems like a hastily put together excuse for a villain. All the same, I would like to point out that I don't think that Mab is particularly evil--she's simply amoral, which seems to make sense; there's a sort of primal touch in her which fits, though I think they really could have come up with a better villain. The ending, I admit, was sappy, but then the movie up until then was so full of death and blood and tragedy that the sap was actually necessary. The two best things about the movie were Sam Neill and Martin Short. Sam Neill runs the gamut of emotions throughout this film, but he always does so in a very restrained manner which brings a humanity to Merlin that he often isn't given in adaptations of Arthurian legend where he is seen as merely a guru, or a mentor. Martin Short is hilariously funny in some scenes, but utterly touching (as I've already mentioned) in the scene where Morgan is dying. Anyways, if you haven't seen it, I'd recommend seeing it, but watch it more for the acting than the story or the special effects.