Merlin

In sixth century Britain, a magician helps a man become king and put an end to decades of anarchy. Made-for-TV film takes some liberties with the original story. Director's fondness for the material is obvious; acting, cinematography and special effects create supernatural feel. Suitable for children and adults. (Rating B+)

With each story comes a different telling of Merlin, Excalibur, Arthur and Camelot.

This story starts before all of the above. It starts with the "creation" of Merlin. Merlin did not just "appear" after all, he also has a past, which this film investigates.

The rest of the story, however, shows that the events around Excalibur and Arthur are a war of magic. Each wizard/wizardess using their magic to control what the humans do to create the outcome they want.

Everyone cheats on each other, and there is even incest.

It is rather slow in the beginning, but it is an entertaining alternative story. It definately focuses on Merlin and who his is.

A rather fine production for a TV movie-to-video film.

Wow! Merlin is a classical hit! i found it truly bedazzling and great story lines. Sam niel gave a great performance as Merlin. I especially like Mav, whose powers were really fun to watch. Arthur was also a favorite character, and also martin short as Frick.If you havent seen this you should definitely rent it.

(1998) Merlin FANTASY

A fantasy retelling about Merlin's life, including his ups and his downs. Both as a mini -series and as mythical history, I thought the experience was uninvolving inaccurate, loopy, jumps in stages without too much elaboration on Merlin's choice of actions. Unmemorable dialogue with actors trying to make sense out of the story, with some of the most cheesiest special effects shown on screen! The situation is, Merlin rebels against her biological mother, Mab who originally inherited some of it's powers from, then upon her fake mother dead, Merlin vows revenge against her real mother, Mab, by using the powers he had gotten from her to be used against her- this is dumb. But this is the result of "The Lord Of The Ring" movies which made more sense, then seeing the history presented here!

For all those people who think that this is the version with Samuel Neill and Miranda Richardson. It is not that version. This version stars Sean Connery's son, Jason. It is very well made and very well acted but is inferior to Steve Barron's NBC miniature series.