I remember Merlin being shown on TV as a two-part mini-series over a bank holiday weekend. The version I found on YouTube is a single three hour movie, but I think it might work better in two chunks, as originally broadcast. It still works pretty well, though. Director Steve Barron is completely infatuated with video editing tricks and slightly primitive CGI effects that I’m sure were state-of-the-art when it was made, but he uses them quite inventively, and there are some very enjoyable performances. Since First Knight was such a washout, I guess this is the definitive ‘90s Arthurian film. Like Excalibur, the definitive ‘80s Arthurian film, it tries to tell the entirety of the Arthur story, but since it’s main focus is Merlin it covers a lot more too, and Arthur himself ends up being a bit of a side-character, with the rise and fall of Camelot packed into the second half.
At first glance, Merlin seems to be aligning itself with what I’m coming to think of as the Low Arthurian tradition, which tries to set the story in the Dark Age Britain where a historical Arthur might have operated. The armour and fortifications look vaguely Roman, and there is much talk about Christian versus pagan kings. (Although, as usual, there are mentions of places like ‘England’, ‘Winchester’and ‘Normandy’ which wouldn’t have existed under those names till centuries later. At least there are no Vikings this time though.) But this is also a Britain that’s full of High Arthurian magic. Along with the Christian and pagan players jostling for power there is Queen Mab, queen of the fairies or, as the cool kids would have it, the faeries. I don’t think is Mab is canonically Arthurian, but she’s at least Arthurian-adjacent, so I suppose she makes a good supernatural foil for Merlin. She’s played by Miranda Richardson, who seems to be having a fine old time. Like TH White’s Merlin she seems to have lived in other eras, and while she was there she stocked up on a lot of eyeliner and purple lipstick. She lives in a cavernous underground Otherworld populated by CGI weirdos, interpretive dancers, and her henchman Frik, who is played by Martin Short in Nosferatu makeup. Her machinations provide the framework on which the whole complicated story hangs.
I’m not au fait with all the traditional versions of Merlin’s story, so I’m not sure how much of this one is the invention of the scriptwriters. Traditionally I think he’s supposed to be the child of the Devil and a mortal woman: here he’s somehow created by Queen Mab, and his human mother dies in childbirth, leaving him to be brought up by his Auntie Ambrosia (Billie Whitelaw). When we first meet him he’s a young man played by Daniel Brocklebank, and he’s about to encounter Nimue (Agnieska Koson/Isabella Rossellini.)
Traditionally Nimue (AKA Vivien) is the enchantress who imprisons Merlin in a tree or cave, either because he’s an old goat and she’s fed up with him pestering her or simply because that’s what enchantresses do. Here their relationship is lifelong and far more complex - it becomes the emotional core of the story, rather overshadowing Lancelot and Guinevere’s romance.
The sudden onset of puberty brought about by his meeting with Nimue seems to awaken Merlin’s magic powers as well, or at least reminds Queen Mab that she created him for a purpose. She takes him away to her spooky cave and trains him in the arts of wizardry, a lengthy process during which he turns into Sam Neill. He also acquires a talking horse called Sir Rupert, which seems wildly at odds with the rest of the film’s tone - luckily Sir Rupert doesn’t get many lines. His tutoring is mostly done by Frik, who has been transformed for the purpose into the outward form and semblance of Piers Corbyn…
Meanwhile in the mortal world, Mab’s ally Vortigern is busy trying to build a castle, and getting frustrated because it keeps collapsing. A frustrated Vortigern is a dangerous thing, and his architects meet sticky ends. This is the story featured in the first episode of The Boy Merlin, where it happened largely off-screen. Here it’s in full view, and rather nicely done, with extras scattering for cover each time the tower gives way, and Vortigern played with great charm and menace by Rutger Hauer.
Merlin is called in to advise, and meets Nimue again, now living in Vortigern’s household as a hostage to make sure her father stays loyal. Her father sides with Vortigern’s rival Uther, however, and as a punishment Vortigern decides to sacrifice Nimue to ‘the Great Dragon’. This isn’t a metaphorical dragon like the Great Dragon in Excalibur: oh no, it’s an actual fire-breathing dragon, the first I’ve seen in one of these films (unless you count the one in The Sword in the Stone, but technically that’s Madam Mim in disguise).
It’s a very good dragon too, but personally I’m not keen on introducing fantasy beasties into Arthurian stories - it makes the whole affair feel a bit too Sword & Sorcery, though I know there are plenty of giants and dragons in the source material so that’s just me. Anyway, Merlin defeats the dragon, but Nimue is horribly burned, and he rushes her off to be healed on the Isle of Avalon (here pictured as a benign Christian community). This incident turns him against Mab and Vortigern, and he applies for help to Mab’s sister the Lady of the Lake (Miranda Richardson again I think, though she’s almost unrecognisable as a glowing white apparition with a necklace of CGI fish - she looks like Tilda Swinton on a diving holiday).
She presents him with the sword Excalibur, which bursts up through the ice of a frozen river, a nice variation on the usual misty pool. Merlin himself is the first to wield it, using it to defeat Vortigern at a wintry battle between the tyrants men and the army of Uther Pendragon. Then he gives the sword to Uther, who he hopes will be a just and compassionate king. Unfortunately Mab is still at work behind the scenes, and causes Uther to fall for the Duke of Cornwall’s wife Igrayne. (I think perhaps it slightly cheapens things to have this a part of Mab’s plot, rather than just prompted by Uther’s own human weakness. But again, the people who told and listened to these stories would probably have imagined all sorts of supernatural agencies were trying to tempt them into bad decisions, so it’s not entirely inappropriate.)
The sequence which follows, with Uther besieging Cornwall at Tintagel and Merlin transforming him into the likeness of the duke so he can have his way with Igrayne, is irresistibly reminiscent of Excalibur, and not just because it’s the same story. Some of the shots, like the one where Uther and Merlin watch the castle from a neighbouring headland as his army rides away, feel like deliberate echoes, although they have none of the older film’s power. It’s the toned-down-for TV version; saner, slower, and tamer. It’s still effective though. Arthur is born, his childhood passes in a couple of shots, and pretty soon Merlin is taking him to draw the sword from the stone (fighting off some v. poor bird/dog beasties on the way). Meanwhile, his half sister Morgan le Fay has grown into Helena Bonham Carter, and is making her own deal with Queen Mab…
The ensuing version of Arthur’s rise and fall is pretty, but a little weightless - the focus is on Merlin, as I suppose it should be in a film called Merlin, and the young actors playing Arthur and Lancelot can’t really compete with ripe old hams like Richardson and Hauer. (Lena Headey is a good Guinevere, but hasn’t a lot to do.) Still, it wins points for being the only Arthurian film I’ve yet seen which includes the pivotal scene where Lancelot’s wife Elaine dies of a broken heart and drifts down to Camelot in her barge, inspiring a load of Victorian paintings on the way. And the business where Guinevere is sentenced to be burned at the stake and Lancelot arrives to rescue her is nicely done too.
I rather lost track of the lovers around then, because Nimue reappears and finally gets around to luring Merlin away to the cave, although here it’s a nice cave, she goes in with him, and the film is careful to make it clear it’s not her fault - Queen Mab is up to her tricks again, getting Merlin off the board so her man Mordred can have a go at being king. Merlin breaks out of his cave-idyll too late to save Arthur, but in time to return Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake. Arthur presumably just dies, there’s no sign of a ship carrying him off to Avalon. By then the film is busy with Merlin and Mab’s final confrontation, which Merlin wins on a slightly frustrating folkloric technicality. Then, according to his narration, Lancelot’s son Galahad finds the Holy Grail, spring returns to the land, and the great cycle of the rise and fall of kings continues. A coda set many years later delivers a long-awaited happy ending for Merlin.
There’s a lot there for purists to take issue with, although to be fair, narrator Merlin does say this is his version of the story and it may not have happened exactly as he told it. As I say, it’s a bit too Sword & Sorcery for my tastes. Also, the dialogue is rather modern and mundane, and frequently tips into bathos. ‘How went the day, Arthur?’ asks Merlin, arriving on the battlefield of Camlann, to which the dying king replies, ‘I’ve had better.’ I’m edging towards a Second Law of Arthurian Films which is, keep dialogue to a minimum and let the pictures do the talking. But Merlin is certainly entertaining, it seems to be written by people with at least some knowledge of and respect for the story, and it often looks good. There are some well-chosen Welsh landscapes and nice costumes, and while some of the effects are a bit ropey others are very effective - the way Mab and other magical characters move, suddenly speeding up and slowing down, works surprisingly well, and there’s a nice scene where she summons a flock of tiny, high-speed fairies to weave a basket for the infant Merlin: they whizz about like humming birds, occasionally pausing just long enough to be revealed as scruffy little blokes with wings. Sam Neill is an earnest and sympathetic Merlin, and Miranda Richardson, Helena Bonham Carter, and Rutger Hauer all go just the right amount of completely over the top. Martin Short’s Frik is never completely evil and becomes sympathetic in the end, which is a good touch. Alan Lee was one of the concept designers, and in some ways the film foreshadows his work on The Lord of the Rings: Mab’s realm is a lower-budget Moria, and the staff the older Merlin carries looks very like Gandalf’s.
So if you’re after a family-friendly Arthurian film which gives at least an outline of the whole story, Merlin is probably the one to go for. I liked it a lot.
NB: There is also a strange sort-of sequel, Merlin’s Apprentice, set fifty years after Arthur’s time. It has Sam Neill as Merlin again, but it doesn’t follow on from the same story: in this version Arthur’s knights found the Grail, and Miranda Richardson (the only other member of the original cast) plays an evil Lady of the Lake. I think there is a good story to be told about the aftermath of Camelot and the adventures of the Round Table’s survivors, but this one is disappointing and probably best avoided.
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