Merlin and the Book of Beasts

I seriously disagree with the other review. I honestly suspected this movie was going to be bad before I got into it, so I wasn't expecting much to begin with. That being said, They talked too damn much and did too damn little. There were very few action scenes and those that were were pretty lame and didn't seem well thought-out. It was a classic sci-fi channel movie, completely lacking in real plot development or ability to draw in the audience.

I enjoy sci-fi movies a lot, but only if they aren't garbage. I have watched a lot of garbage, and a lot of fairly good sci-fi movies, including Lord of the Rings and Star Wars of course. I have also watched and loved the Star Trek TV show and movies. I honestly have to say that I would prefer to watch In The Name Of The King, and that movie was terrible. The problem with this movie is that it was boring and did not engage the audience in the least. There was too much talking, especially with big fantasy words that were unnecessary aplenty. It almost seemed as if it was trying too hard. I would rather watch a Dungeons and Dragons movie, because at least they do enough to keep me involved.

i'm a sucker these costume rehashes of Merlin and the knights of the Round Table. not much in the way of character development in this film - i guess you're required to know the general story well enough to understand who/what the characters reference.

Merlin, who i guess is supposed to be one of the leads, plays the character like a homeless person who's inhaled too many dangerous chemicals and is permanently deranged. 'daisy,' from Dead Like Me, tries to provide a moral center for the film, without success.

the rest of the cast stays in the background. even the 'bad guy' has minimal screen time and doesn't make much of an impact.

made it too the end only by using the 'fast forward' function of our DVR.

So, I finished watching this movie today, and the only thing that was even half decent about it was the soundtrack. The acting was sub-par, the script was abhorrent, and the characters were more shallow than a kiddie pool. The effects were terrible, and all around I feel like I should be paid for even watching this movie. I was originally interested in this movie because the actor who plays Merlin was the actor for Baltar in Battlestar Galactica. I remembered how good of an actor he was in that television show, but sadly he was terrible in this movie, especially the accent he adopted for the role. All in all, don't waste your time.

It seems that more modern fantasy movies just can't get out of their own way. This isn't the worst movie I have watched, but it wasn't really any good either. Overall the storyline can be followed. The script is mediocre. The acting is mostly reasonable, except for the characterization of Merlin's voice. The action sequences are mostly sub par. Special effects are extremely low budget. There is surprisingly character development over the course of the movie. Unfortunately that doesn't counteract the numerous negative components of the movie. It is watchable (barely so) but I definitely would not go out of my way to watch it.

SCI-FI Channel continues to go down hill. They take good actors and make stuff I can't make it all the way through without changing the channel. They kill decent shows like "Dresden Files" and deluge you with reality shows like "Ghost Hunters". Maybe they should change their name to Reality-FI :). Don't waste your time with this movie. The movie is slow paced with poor special effects. The story line is mediocre at best. None of the characters full develop. The move is a real bore with no substance or any real entertainment value. SCI-FI really need to rethink there approach to entertaining sci-fi fans. They have fallen off the mark and don't seem to be able to get on track.