The thing that I love about this movie is its complexity. I have grown up with this movie - in 1998 when it came out on TV I was 12 and watched it like any other 12 year old would - bad guys vs good guys. However as I grew older and into my teenage years, I began to see the intricate layers of this movie. The best things about this movie, which are extremely rare in movies or TV shows, is that there is no true villain. Queen Mab is made out to be, but you can sympathise with her - she is the last of her 'race' who cares enough to try to fight against their extinction. She is not actually evil in any sense. Another is the recognition that people make mistakes - this whole movie is about Merlin constantly making mistakes and mis-judging people and their motives. Under-riding everything is the religious tones - Is it pure coincidence that Merlin was an immaculate conception. There is so much thought that has gone into this movie - much more than others - from the 'naturalistic' use of magic, to the complex characters and multiple themes and complex story lines - it is great. If they re-made this as MA (instead of PG) nowdays (and got rid of all the 'kiddie stuff', I think it would rival Game of Thrones at least in complexity and quality!

Things might have got off to a rocky start the instant they cast the rather pedantic actor Sam Neill as Merlin the Wizard, but he actually did a decent job. Same cannot be said for most of the rest of the cast, or the production in general. Far be it from me to judge a TV movie too harshly, but this one seems to call itself in for extra scrutiny because of the huge cast of stellar actors that are often used rather cynically. For example John Gielgud is 3rd billed, but only shows up for about 30 seconds in the very first five minutes of the movie.This seems (judging from Neill's reappearance in unconvincing old-age makeup) to have been a two part film, encompassing all the major events of Arthurian lore but focusing on the perspective of Merlin. In order to do so, the writers have given Merlin a nemesis played by Miranda Richardson and a lover played by Isabella Rossellini. The film often imitates John Boorman's "Excalibur" instead of the authentic mythology, but unfortunately they didn't develop Merlin's relationship with Morgan Le Fey (Helena Bonham Carter) nearly as well as was done in that film. Poor Miranda Richardson seems to have been the victim of poor decisions that her director should have held in check -- she speaks throughout the film in a sort of whisper that's supposed to be earthy and scary but which is annoying after just a few moments. Rossellini as is her wont injects a minor role with all kinds of false gravity.Although Martin Short makes Herculean efforts to put humor into the story, the only scenes that made me laugh were when Rutger Hauer takes over the film as a blunt and self-consciously idiotic previous King of England. "My opponents think before they act; I act before I think and that gives me my advantage." It's hilarious stuff delivered in a delicious straight manner by Hauer, one of the few actors to emerge from the film richer than he entered it in any but the financial sense.The effects in general are rather poor, looking extremely similar to those used in the "Hercules" TV series. The camera work and direction by Steve Barron is somewhat more accomplished than one would expect. Many faces are familiar from "The Odyssey" miniseries which was made by the same producers apparently.

I didn't see all of it, because after a while, I found it very boring. And Queen Mab with the voice that sounded like she had laryngitis, which I at first thought was amusing, but throughout an hour of the movie it just got annoying. As for the love story between Merlin and Nimue, in my opinion, it was hurried and there was no character development at all. The characters in the movie weren't hard to figure out, it was easy to tell who was evil and who wasn't. The battle scene on the ice didn't look very convincing, except for the blood. And the racist joke when Merlin first came to see Mab in the cave wasn't amusing either.

I've never been big on made-for-TV movies. They tend to be underdeveloped, idiotic, and full of more plot holes than a book about Swiss cheese.The only notable (full-length) exception is the fantastic "Merlin," a very well-handled, beautifully visualized, and superbly performed fantasy drama starring Sam Neill and Isabella Rossellini. What's most interesting about this film is that it's really quite different for an Arthurian tale: it's about Merlin, not Arthur!In fact, Arthur is just another one of the players who visits Merlin's board every now and then. His fellow characters always enhance and never detract from the story, and no one ever steals the show.The cinematography is almost theatrical in its beauty. The sweeping music is... well, nice and sweeping. And the magic could make even the stoniest-faced Scrooge believe in *something.* Welcome to the world of "Merlin"-- a world you're not likely to forget.