Customer Reviews

Merlin and the War of the Dragons

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Good movie. Good plot. Good story telling. A young Merlin who only begins to shape the things to come. Bravo!!! Maybe a sequel of times with Uther wouldn't be so bad. Uther carried Excalibur for a time, maybe he wasn't the bad man we were all led to believe.

Merlin is a charming family film, what you see is what you get - dragons, battles, good vs evil, etc... I played it for my kids on thanksgiving and they enjoyed it. Jurgen Prochnow is wonderful in everything he is in and this is no exception.
One thing though.. the song on the end credits 'Chain of Promise' that Sanya Mateyas sings is particularly awesome...I haven't had any luck finding it online, but it's really great.

I was worried this would be a real stinker but it actually was very entertaining. It is a dragon movie....don't expect any award winning dramatic performances....but very entertaining and watchable.

I saw this at the video store and said why not. this movie turned out to be one of the most awesome low budget movies i've seen even the dragons were well made. this is a good movie.

"Merlin and the War of the Dragons" is a wonderful film. I can add little to what the others have said. I do know that the movie felt realistic in its portrayal of a low-fantasy, magic-poor, Dark Age England. A complex yet engaging script, no cursing, no nudity, great acting --- is this really an Asylum movie?

I am sure that the movie contains anachronisms, but they don't distract. Fantasy armor, peasant clothing, funny English accents all work well with the film. The CGI dragons are not intrusive. Some of the spell effects are weak-looking, but this is a low-magic time. The swordfights are also a little stilted and fake-looking. Overall, the movie is at least a four-star movie.

Sadly, the movie has neither commentary nor DVD extras.

A film sequel to the fantasy history world of Merlin. This man is a magician of the secret world who in turn got into this service thru family heredity. If you realize truth/real world/, sorcery/evil-witchcraft, and common sense then you will enjoy this rendition. If there was more portrayal on Arthur's wife Gwenivere, the Lady of the Lake, and Merlin's teacher/soldier of truth; it would be a little more interesting.

A valiant attempt at retelling one version of the Merlin/Excalibur story, filled with dragons and magic. Filmed in Wales with beautiful panoramic shots of the countryside scattered throughout the film, it tells the tale of Merlin and his dragons fighting, well, there really is no point in delving too deep.

Putting aside the laminated plywood shields, iron-creased uniforms, welded armor, really bad CGI, really really bad acting (except for Jergen - always like to see him) one might enjoy this as a weekend watch with some of the young kids. Judging from the fake battles and omission of every kill or person getting burned by a dragon, I would venture to say this was geared towards the younger crowd by keeping the rating low.

The CGI renders somewhat nicely when the dragons are alone in the sky, but once people are in the same shot, I had customers laughing instead of wanting to rent it. Needless to say I won't play it again, but I might recommend it for those young dragon fans out there (roughly about 8 minutes of total screen time for all the critters).

The main thing that stands out to me about this film is the horrible acting of all of the non-headlining actors, and the excellent music for the end credits (which, excellent as it was, seemed a bit out of place after the movie).

Don't get me wrong, Simon Llyod Roberts, as Merlin, did a great job, and I was completely on board with the portayals of Uther and the Mage. The other major roles seemed a bit dreary and confused, but the small roles and extras seemed like they didn't even know that they were filming rather than rehearsing. It all seemed a bit weird to me.

As for the story- it was pretty interesting. Merlin is born, and we see an argument over whether he should be slain or not, then we jump to Merlin's wizard training as a young man. There were several things about this film that are obviously inspired by the Star Wars saga. For example, the wizards shoot lightning out of their fingers, there is a line toward the end, and I do not remember it word-for-word, but it's something to the effect of "join me and together we will rule the world," which follows a very Darth-Vader-is-your-father-esque revelation...well, I don't want to give anything away, but you can definately tell that the film was produced with Star Wars in mind, which is fine, but parts of it almost seem like Mad Libs.

Okay this is a cute childrens film. I do recall a few others that I saw as a kid with a handful of actors/actreses, but in this day of larger casts like in Braveheart (Sapphire Series) [Blu-ray] you need more than a cast of about ten to impress most adults. I applaud their attempt to make this Arthurian legend come to life and the acting is fair, but next time round up your families, friends, the neighorhood, or use some special effects and spend a little more if you plan to have epic battle scenes. If you enjoyed this you're watching to much late night TV, but try The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (50th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray].

CA Luster

I can honestly say I have no words to describe how this film affected me....