I cavalieri di Bloodsteel

"Knights of Bloodsteel" is a TV production which shines in a comparison to other TV series of the genre, such as "Conan" or "Beastmaster". The limited budget of "Knights of Bloodsteel" lead to less dragons (maybe one per hour) and more character development which is a good thing, unless you prefer movies where something goes BOOM every two minutes.

The 4 knights of Mirabilis need to be pushed to go on their mission, they don't see themselves as heroes and mind their own business rather the community. The Evil One isn't just evil for the fun of it, but he needs the desired magical object of the week, a little glowing red thing, to save his son. Other baddies aren't simply obedient servants - they pursue their own goals instead. To sum it up, the characters seem quite realistic which is rare in the genre.

I loved the scene when Perfidia (an elf) asks Maya (a human) to go down on her knees. Perfidia wants to make her a member of the Mirabilis knights. Maya however thinks it's the arrogant elves again and shouts angrily at her. A complete misunderstanding like it could happen between people who know each other for a short time only, but few fantasy films allow their heroes to make such silly mistakes.

"Knights of Bloodsteel" is a good fantasy film, definitely more than I expected. Try it if the mega-buck blockbusters haven't overpowered your sense of taste yet.

There seems to be a certain standard that SciFi must force their movie to adhere to because what other explanation can there there be for a consistency of bland, badly acted and boring stories. Here we have another fantasy adventure which utterly lacks both. Would it have really been that hard to come up with a few novel twists on the genre? With feature films pushing the edges of story telling and concept, are these scripts and filmmakers really the best SciFi can come up with? you would think a show like Battlestar Galactica would have shown it can be done. Or is it a matter of saving a few dollars? Even the Seeker TV show now on is dreadful. Everything is fantasy is recycled it seems. I am excited for next year in film and TV. My hope is the new Conan film along with Red Sonja, Thor, John Carter on Mars will put fantasy and imagination back into this genre. I even have hope for a low budget effort like Tales of an Ancient Empire (yes it has Kevin sorbo and Christopher Lambert, but I loved The Sword and the Sorcerer so I'll give it a try). My hope is to once again see imagination and creative ideas in these efforts (I can not call them films). Please Sci Fi, spend a little more time and money to get better people in front of and behind the camera.

For any sci-fi or fantasy fan, or any good TV series or Film for that matter, this pilot will seem cliché, repetitive,unimaginative,un-insipiring,poorly directed and poorly executed. Continuity is absent, the characters are as superficial and un-involving as they can be. Even Christopher Loyd's performance was nothing like his usual level. Total waste of money, time, and effort. The script was the main cause of all of this, and the direction finished the job and sealed it's fate. The audience doesn't relate to the characters, nor does it care what happens to them. The actors were not helping out at all with their performance.

I bought this movie (or is it a mini-series?) on DVD quite a while back, and only recently bothered to watch it. While it had its slow parts, it did keep me interested enough to keep watching, despite being long.

It's one of those movies I wouldn't recommend to everyone, as it lacks some of the fancy and "shiny" glow we all expect when watching such movies, but I believe anyone who likes the fantasy genre enough, will enjoy and appreciate this movie, despite not being a masterpiece.

One reviewer in particular insisted that the story wasn't original, but I disagree. While some of the story elements here we have seen before, this movie does bring enough original elements and twists of its own for me to consider it interesting and original enough to justify its existence.

I'm familiar with some of writer Sam Egan's work (The Outer Limits, Sanctuary, Continuum) and while "Knights Of Bloodsteel" might not be his best work, it was fun and interesting to watch. It was also fun to watch David James Elliot (Commander Rabb on JAG) playing Serragoth.

Recommended!

Was it perfect? No. But I wasn't expecting perfection. It was fantasy, and as such it was a new world to be explored by the viewer. Since I don't watch a lot of fantasy stuff, I didn't have a lot of other stories/shows to compare it to. So to me it was pretty good. I would have preferred that the director have allowed David James Elliott to continue using the Scots accent that he started with (instead of telling him to stop since he was afraid that no one would be able to understand him. I understood DJE better than I did the actress who played Perfidia. Not sure if the problem there was her accent or the fake fangs she was forced to wear for her role.) I wouldn't mind seeing this go to series, although I know that it won't. I think that there were still stories to be told about the Knights of Bloodsteel.