Hallmark Entertainment/NBC, 1998

Directed by Steve Barron
Written by David and Peter Barnes
Story by Edward Kharma
Produced by Dyson Lovell
Music by Trevor Jones
Cinematography by Sergei Kozlov
Edited by Colin Green
Production Design by Roger Hall
Costumes by Ann Hollowood

Cast
Sam Neill (Merlin)
Helena Bonham Carter (Morgan Le Fey)
Miranda Richardson (Mab, Queen of the Old Ways/The Lady of the Lake)
John Gielgud (King Constant)
Martin Short (Frik)
Paul Curran (King Arthur Pendragon)
Jason Done (Mordred)
Rutger Hauer (Lord Vortigern)
James Earl Jones (voice of the Mountain King)
Isabella Rossellini (Nimue)

Reviewed by Jason F. C. Clarke

But while Lord of the Rings represented the first real step forward for the genre since Conan the Barbarian, there have been a few diamonds in the rough over the past thirty years. One of these is Merlin, a 1998 television miniseries by Hallmark Entertainment. Starring Sam Neill as the title character and featuring great character actors such as Miranda Richardson and Rutger Hauer, the miniseries’ popularity revealed there was an audience for quality heroic fantasy.

Like many adaptations of the Arthurian legend produced in the twentieth century (the most famous being Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon), Merlin frames the story as a struggle between pagan and Christian forces. It introduces to the story the character of Queen Mab, an English fairy or witch whose only real claim to fame is her appearance in a speech by Mercutio in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, though Shakespeare may have been thinking of the Irish goddess Medb or her Welsh counterpart Mabb. Mab (played with a creepy Goth seductiveness by Richardson), arranges Merlin’s birth (much as Merlin will arrange Arthur’s decades later), hoping Merlin will lead the pagan world to victory against the forces of Christianity.

Merlin, predictably, decides he’s not really fond of Mab’s penchant for killing and maiming the people he loves, so he makes it his quest to aid humanity in its struggle against Mab. He joins forces with Uther Pendragon (Mark Jax) to help him defeat the vicious Lord Vortigern (Hauer). As anyone familiar with the legend knows, the eventual outcome is the birth of Arthur Pendragon (Paul Curran), whom Merlin hopes will lead the world to a new age of enlightenment and peace.

The cast is rounded out by Helen Bonham-Carter as Arthur’s duplicitous half-sister, Morgan Le Fey, and Martin Short as Mab’s gnome assistant, Frik. Richardson also has a second role as the Lady of the Lake, whom, we’re told, is Mab’s “good” sister.

If one were to divide Merlin between "sword" and "sorcery," it’s clear the emphasis was on "sorcery." This is indeed Merlin’s story, and the familiar Arthurian plot mechanics—the search for the Holy Grail, the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere—take a backseat to the larger duel between Merlin and Queen Mab. The name actors are all in the sorcerous roles, and predictably this is where we see the strongest performances. Richardson uses her trademark high-pitched voice to creepy effect, adding a layer of rasp that somehow enhances the seductiveness. Short all but disappears beneath some of the best make-up work I’ve ever seen. Bonham-Carter plays the broken-china-doll role she often does (see Fight Club), but it works well here. And Neill’s thoughtful, conflicted Merlin is one of the better portrayals of the old graybeard that the legend has seen.

The production values are hit-and-miss. The costuming is some of the best I’ve seen for a film like this; it seems care was taken to provide some historical realism with regard to the Anglo-Saxon warriors led by Vortigern and the Roman Britons led by Uther Pendragon. The special effects, however, are bizarre. The director has a particular fascination with a strange sort of speeding-up effect, which is often jarring and cheap-looking. The miniseries itself looks like a Hallmark production—that is, it looks like television, not film, unlike many modern miniseries—and there are several moments where Short’s Frik performs anachronistic little gags (such as dressing as a boarding school professor) that seem very off-key with the sequences with Neill. There is, however, one lovely effect with a talking mountain.

While it’s not the blood-and-thunder stuff of traditional heroic fantasy, Merlin shows a care and attention to detail that’s lacking in many fantasy films. As of this writing, a sequel is being filmed for release next year, again starring Neil and Richardson.