Mythica: The Necromancer

The first two Mythica films may have been cheesy low budget nonsense but they were enjoyable cheesy low budget nonsense.

But now they've brought in a new director who has managed to remove the all important enjoyable bit.

The guy has one trick, one single trick that he does over and over again and it goes like this...slow motion, suddenly fast motion, now slow motion again. And it happens all the time. Even just walking about among some trees or something people start slowing down then suddenly briefly speeding up for no reason at all. After about the 7000'th time this happens you just have to start laughing. I don't know, maybe his editing machine is broken or something but it certainly made this instalment of the Mythica series a chore to sit through. He better cut it out with the next one.

When I picked up this DVD for £3 at my local supermarket, I knew I was in for a classic tale of mediocrity, sub par effects, and budget filmmaking.

I was not disappointed.

Acting: I've never seen death and hardship be portrayed in such a dead-pan and wooden manner. Thane's character was under-utilised as his screen presence was quite strong. The bad guys did a good job, but sometimes their writing wasn't believable - for example one of them seemed to be a really bad guy at times, but seemed to develop a kind of stockholm syndrome with the good guys, and this betrayed not only his character but the sense of antagonism and tension within the main 'party' of characters.

Story: A good overall storyline, actually very well paced. Ultimately, the fact that I watched the film in windowed mode while playing Guild Wars 2 speaks volumes about my interest in the on screen action. The introduction was very disappointing as nothing much really happened.

Visual effects: Obviously this is not a huge budget blockbuster, and so the effects are going to reflect this. Still, there was some skilled camera-work which helped mask some of the rougher edges.

Music and Sound: Unfortunately one of the weaker points of the movie. Some of the synthesised effects were very out of place for this genre of film. Also, for the first half there is this unusual helicopter synth sound that is pretty intrusive and goes on for several minutes. I don't know how this sound effect is at all related to progressing the narrative or reflecting the on screen action, it only served as an annoyance.

Conclusion: Why not? Just don't pay top dollar for it.

Also, that one 10 star review on here is obviously fake, right? I mean it has to be fake.

Not going to bother with the story line, there really is not that much to say for it, more or less a D&D session made into a movie, with a sub-par DM as director/movie maker.

Production value makes the standard Scy-Fy Channels stuff look stellar by comparison. Effects are as cheesy as it gets. Dialogue is laughable at best.

The actors may as well be D&D players doing this movie for free. It's that bad.

And just to underscore how bad this is, some troll decided to bot the crap out of the ratings, spamming it with 10 star ratings.

The movie starts pretty weakly, with the choice between killing two people and grabbing a rope versus going on a dangerous quest most certain to be followed by deceit, but I went with it.

There is a new bug controlling character who was pretty interesting, but not nearly explored enough. A smuggler appears later in the film who was also fun, but then he died just when he was becoming interesting and then there are the legions of faceless people dying while all the main characters claim they are righteous and not murderers.

Well, it was fun, although a bit clunky with the story. It made Merrick finally decide her path and didn't squirm from hurting the main characters. All in all, I liked it, but I expect more. They can do better, as they have proved in the past.

And so the saga continues - a saga I thoroughly enjoy for its beautiful locations and the adrenaline of adventure with obstacles thrown in around every corner. The photography and visuals seem to get better as the series continues. I did miss Adam Johnson (who plays Thane) during the action sequences, due to him being captured in the beginning of the film, and the film is actually a quest to save him. A very determined character, Betylla, is introduced in this film, wonderfully portrayed by Philip Brodie. The evil inside Marek surfaces more regularly as the series continues, again very well played by Melanie Stone.

This was yet another great action adventure film.