Merlin and the War of the Dragons (2008)

How sad is this?

Beautiful, moving film.

An absolute waste of money

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Clearly inspired by Shine's TV show Merlin (there's even an opening voice-over by a John Hurt sound-alike) which has become the first British series to be sold to one of the major American networks for several years, Merlin and the War of the Dragons (retitled Merlin and the War of the Dragon Empire on it's Region 2 release) is one of the better efforts from shameless rip-off merchants The Asylum. Fittingly, apart from the American financing this is very much a British film - it was shot entirely on location in Wales in just two weeks, with a cast of almost entirely Welsh and English actors. In fact, the only non-British thespian involved is legendary German character actor Jurgen Prochnow (always welcome), playing the mage who is the young Merlin's mentor and surrogate father.The script throws in various elements from the Arthurian myths: Merlin's first meeting with Uther Pendragon and Ingraine, who will become Arthur's parents; Uther's ascent to the throne; and not one, but two Ladies of the Lake – Nimue and her sister Vivianne. Excalibur also makes an appearance, but despite everyone treating the sword as though it's of major importance, within the story of this film it's just a MacGuffin. And some body-painted Pict warriors turn up in one scene, for no apparent reason other than the producers having clearly seen King Arthur (2004). There's also one key aspect of the Arthurian legends that the Shine series has (so far) ignored, but which this movie openly embraces – the notion that Merlin is the Devil's son.Merlin and the War of the Dragons was made with a budget that wouldn't pay for the catering on an average Hollywood production, but it's still a good-looking film, provided you realistically lower your expectations. The Welsh landscapes give the movie an atmosphere of both gritty realism and majestic mysticism, with constantly overcast and forbidding-looking skies. The CGI dragons are actually very impressive when seen in the air, although less so when they land and we get a better look at them. And unfortunately, when Uther gives his soldiers a blatant copied-from-Braveheart battlefield speech, despite the clever camera angles used by the director there's no hiding the fact that Uther's mighty army consists of just over a dozen men.But despite these limitations, this is still a highly watchable film. Prochnow is his usual reliable self, while the rest of the cast – a collection of newcomers and unknowns – don't disgrace themselves, and give solid performances. Special mention must go to Nia Ann and Carys Eleri who play Nimue and Vivianne respectively, and succeed in giving the characters an unsettling, otherworldly quality. The sight of Nimue tending to a wounded and unconscious Merlin by trickling blood from her mouth into his is genuinely unnerving.The last scene of the film raises the possibility of a sequel. Provided the same quality can be maintained, that's a very welcome prospect.

I hope this films budget was so low they could not even pay their actors. There is absolutely nothing good with this film. The actors cannot act and most of them seriously needs some tweezing. The "special" effects are outdated. The plot is more predictable then an episode of Murder she wrote. This film could have been entertaining if the people making it at least would know they were producing something so bad it dos not even warrant a straight-to-DVD release. But doing slow motion fight scenes to hide the lack of choreography and blurring the screen when the dragons are shown to hide your lack of a special effects budget is just really pathetic. If you want to watch a decent Merlin film, get the mini-series from 1998. Not only has it a better plot and actors, but it seems that special effects were better 10 years ago.If they make this into a trilogy I will resign from mankind and go live with the two horrible, but kind of cute, Lady of the lake actors in their cave.

This movie, if one can even call it that, is bad all the way around from the cameraman who seems to be epileptic, to the silly battle scene in which all 20 cast and crew took part in and the utterly ridiculous attempt at a troop rallying speech (picture a mentally challenged version of Mel Gibson's Braveheart speech). Although I have to say at this point it was good for a laugh, watching them try and make 20 people look like 20,000 by quickly changing camera angles (which may have been the epilepsy again). Total budget for this movie, $24.65. $20.00 on props, $2.00 on CGI, $2.00 on the script and .65 cents on acting lessons. If you like fantasy movies stay away from this one... far far away!!!

I had the misfortune of buying this DVD from Play.com thinking it would be half decent to watch. What a mistake that was, as other reviewers have said this is quite bad, actors who can't act etc. etc., but worst of all there is no COLOUR to the film, no green grass, no flesh tones, nothing actually, I know it is supposed to be the Dark ages but the director Mark Atkins is also a cinematographer but he well and truly "cocked" this film up big time. What Jurgen Prochnow was doing appearing in this film is anybodies guess, the story isn't that bad with better direction and a bigger budget from money saved by hiring totally unknown actors except Jurgen who knows. A POOR EFFORT, not a very good advert for the British film industry.