nik_kas

Sam Neil made a name of himself with the original Jurassic Park (among others) but I believe that one of his best movies was Merlin.

Yes, at times it feels as if the actors in this 2-part mini series know all too well that this isn't a high-budget movie (even Sam) but for the most part their acting is very good.

CGI is mediocre by today's standards, back then however it was considered good (not great) and so it does help with the story.

As for historical accuracy well, this is a movie about Merlin and Camelot so the writers had quite a bit of leeway to add their own bits into the story and personally I didn't mind one bit.

Overall Merlin belongs in a time of magic, a time when we had mini-series that took us into fantastical places, mini-series that we still watch almost 30 years later.

From CONAN and TERMINATOR to this, yes, Arnold did seem like the least favourable person to pull this through but he did and then some. Didn't like him a lot in THE TWINS but KINDERGARDEN COP was nice and well the LAST ACTION HERO was even better.

I mean, what's there not to like?

Cast? Damn, it must have most known actors and actresses of the 90's in it.

Acting? Well, this is essentially a comedy, spoof of shorts so you can't expect serious acting all the way and well, you wouldn't like it if that was the case.

Effects? Luckily CGI wasn't that widespread in use back then so for the most part they had practical effects which worked very well.

Overall I never did get the hate some people had towards this, yes, it's not as good as CONAN THE BARBARIAN or T1/T2 but it's a movie that you can easily watch more than once and that says a lot about it.

Only downside is that we never got a sequel (just like we never got the final CONAN movie) and well that was a disappointment.