Reviews

I agree with others who did not like the film. It was like watching a jigsaw puzzle being put together without a picture of the whole scene. It's not that the acting was bad in my opinion, but there was no reason to make the story so difficult to follow. It wasn't until I had finished watching the show that I looked at commentaries, and at IMDb to find out who was who, and who was related to whom, and by what connection.

OK, we all have a past and many of us have complaints about our parents, but most of us do not air them, because we are far from perfect ourselves. We also learn as we grow older (hopefully), and our misbehavior toward our children was not with the intention of hurting them -- mostly it was because of personal anxieties about life, and how to protect our children from many destructive mistakes.

By contrast to this movie about family dysfunction, and the processes of remembering the past, another screenplay which uses some of the same techniques, and which is possibly my favorite teleplay of all time is the original version of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. Never have I seen a screenplay so perfectly written and directed and cast and acted as this one. It is a marvel, and it contains a lot of ironic humor too.

The Robert Frost poem of the same name is a very good analogy. There are some few who are true stars, and there ore others who would like to be stars but are like the fireflies. Their little lights may appear momentarily to light the night sky, but they do not last long.

Sickeningly mawkish story. Typical Hollywood. Clownish and idiotic dialog. An attempt to interject humor in an otherwise adventurous tale.

Compare this production to the British series, Merlin. The latter had better dialog, better storyline, equally good special effects. The only drawbacks I found in Merlin were with regard to casting, but Colin Morgan made an ideal young Merlin for me. John Hurt's voice made a more believable dragon than Sean Connery's voice.

These fantasies are fun to watch when they are well made. However, I am always aware that the dragon is the biblical symbol of Satan. Therefore to make a noble beast of the creature is mockery of the Bible. "Merlin" did not exactly make the dragon a good creature - without the control of a "dragonlord" it became entirely destructive. It seems ironic to make any kind of pact with a dragon; it is literally making a pact with the devil. But as I say, the fantasy is fun when well done.

I enjoy the special effects, and the young Merlin is nicely portrayed by Colin Morgan. Guinevere was apparently supposed to be Welsh or Celt, not black for sure. She is supposed to be a ravishingly beautiful woman - all of this is missed in the series. Young Arthur played by Bradley James is comparable to Jack Reacher played by Tom Cruise. So, I guess the series is designed for very young kids, but it would have been nice if the script had at least been true to the classics.

Why should old guys like me even be interested in watching this perversion of the legend? I guess we don't have much better to do, and fantasy is generally fun when it is well done.

I'm into the third season via rented discs. One long sequence of non sequiturs, misappropriated scenes, gaffes, gauche behaviors... not one character to identify with or interesting to watch. A main character that can't stop his self-destructive relationships, a wife who can't say no to any request no matter how inappropriate and a mother who probably doesn't love her children, a young naive career woman who rises like cream regardless of her stupidity.

I cannot fully express my disgust with this series. Just flush it. It goes nowhere and exemplifies nothing positive in humanity. If the Cuban missile crisis had resulted in the destruction of such a society, we would have to say: good riddance.