Merlin

Year of release : 1998

Run time : 3h

Genre : Adventure / Fantasy / 2 part Mini Series

Cast : Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, Martin Short, Isabella Rossellini, Lena Headey, Rutger Hauer, Helena Bonham Carter, Sebastian Roche

The Hallmark mini series are adapted from the legend of king Arthur, Camelot and wizard Merlin from the myths of Britain.

Merlin is an old man telling his life story to the people. He starts by saying how at the dawn of the Christian era in Britain, one tyrant passed his crown to another, the endless wars destroying the country.

The followers of the old ways (pagan) were crying to their gods, to the most powerful of them all, Queen Mab.

Queen Mab decides to create a powerful wizard to lead the people and make them come back to the old ways. She asks for her sister’s help, the Lady of the Lake, but she wants no part in it. Queen Mab tells her they need to do this, so people will keep believing in them, as if they stop believing they will die. The Lady of the Lake says that’s the way things flow in life, and they should accept it.

Queen Mab creates a child, and impregnates a mortal woman with it, who dies when she gives birth to him. Queen Mab comes to take him, not wanting to help the dying mother. She changes her mind about taking him, when she hears she has to take care of him, and leaves him with Ambrosia until he comes of age and starts getting powers. Queen Mab names him Merlin.

When Merlin comes of age, he meets Nimue, and he falls in love with her. He rescues her from dying in the quick sands, by making a branch grow to reach her, and Ambrosia knows he has to go be with Queen Mab now.

Queen Mab sends him an enchanted horse who takes him to her realm.

He meets Frik who teaches him, but Queen Mab has no patience with the teachings.

Queen Mab doesn’t like hearing Merlin doesn’t want to be a wizard, as he doesn’t like magic and wants to go home! I can’t imagine why would he want to go home, it’s not like he lives in a cave(sarcasm)!

The Lady of the Lake appears to Merlin, telling him Queen Mab let his mother die, and Ambrosia is dying. Merlin leaves to see her, but Queen Mab gets there first, creating a storm ,enraged at her (as Ambrosia always pushes her buttons), and k1lls her.

Merlin finds Queen Mab at her place while she’s dying, and tells her he’ll never forgive her for k1lling his mother and Ambrosia, and will never help her. Queen Mab says she didn’t k1ll them she just let them die.

Merlin takes a vow upon Ambrosia’s grave to only use his powers to defeat Queen Mab.

Years later, Merlin is taken by king Vortigern’s men. The king wants to build a tower on a rock formation, but it keeps on falling down, and nobody knows why.

Queen Mab appears to his wizard, and tells him it needs the blood of a man without a mortal father, and tells him where to find Merlin.

 

Merlin tells him the reason the tower keeps on falling is a river flowing underneath. He also gets a vision of two dragons, one red one white, fighting each other, the red defeating the white.

King Vortigern puts him in a dungeon.

Luckily for Merlin, Nimue is king Vortigern’s prisoner, as the king wants to make sure her father will fight for his cause. Nimue pleads for his freedom, and they release him from the dungeon.

Queen Mab makes an appearance at king Vortigern’s court,and tells him she wants Merlin, and that he can win the battle by sacrificing Nimue to the dragon.

The king does as Mab says, by letting Merlin watch, having him tied to a tree.

Merlin manages to get away, but when he‘s about to rescue her ,the dragon burns her.

Merlin takes Nimue to Avalon, where they try to heal her with herbs, but half of her face is scarred. Nimue is afraid to show her face to the world thinking herself a monster.

 

Merlin is asking for the Lady of the Lake’s help, and she gives him the Excalibur sword of the just .

He goes to the “red dragon” king Uther, telling him Vortigern will attack him within a few days. King Uther doesn’t believe him, saying no one attacks in winter.

Merlin also tells him to fight on the frozen lake in order to win.

After the battle, which they won, Merlin gives Excalibur to king Uther.

At the feast where Uther is crowned king over Vortigern’s land, he sees Igraine, the wife of lord Cromwell, and wants her. He asks Merlin to give her to him, and in the end Merlin makes him look like her husband, so he could sleep with her, so Merlin would get a son from their union, Arthur.

When he takes the shape of her husband, and sleeps with her, Uther’s men k1ll her husband.

Uther becomes full of himself, so Merlin takes his sword and puts it in a rock,asking the rock to keep it until a good man comes to claim it.

Before all this, Igraine had a daughter who was disfigured, Morgan, and Queen Mab with Frik work her. Frik and Morgan fall in love, and Frik makes her beautiful.

Queen Mab tells her she needs to sleep with her brother ,Arthur, in order to get the throne she wants.

Morgan eventually has a son, Modrid, who’s evil, having been raised by the likes of her and Queen Mab.

In the beginning I enjoyed the mini series, but the characters are all shades of grey, one worse than the other, and it makes it hard to watch, seeing them backstabbing each other.

I liked the colors and landscapes, the world created, the set design, the costumes, especially Queen Mab’s. I loved Queen Mab’s whole look.

The acting was good. The best, in my opinion, was Miranda Richardson as she had to play Queen Mab, a fey goddess who spoke in a sort of whisper raspy voice.She also played the Lady of the Lake, queen Mab’s opposite. She actually won the Best Actress in a Motion Picture or Mini Series at the Online Film & Television Association Awards . She was also nominated for a Golden Globe for this role.

The visual effects were good, except for the dragon which looked computer made.

Speaking of effects, but not visual, I think they put Isabella Rossellini’s voice over the voice of the young actress playing Nimue, because it sounded like her voice, and Isabella has a deep voice, and it sounded uncanny, as the girl was a teenager.

The soundtrack was so and so, leaning towards not so amazing.

The mini series were nominated for many awards, and won half of them.

You can find the full movie for free, on YouTube.

Rating : Worth a watch !