Merlin (1998, miniseries) - Theatrics and bad styles rule in never-ending turkey

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Star Sam Neill looks determined at us ensconced in smoke and co-stars on this poster for Steve Barron's Merlin

The English legend of Merlin the wizard, his love, Nimue, sir Lancelot, Camelot, queen Mab and the Lady of the Lake are explored.

 

Merlin is written by Peter Barnes (The Professionals (1960)) and David Stevens (Homicide (1972-76)), with Edward Khmara (Dragon (1993)) contributing story elements, and directed by Steve Barron (Electric Dreams (1984)). This review is based on the video release of the film in the form of one epic-length film.

The length is inexorable, and the impressive cast cannot salvage this folk lore botch-up. Theatrical overacting and childlike hysterics is the general rule in the performances: Sam Neill (Alcatraz (2012, TV-series)) does pretty well in the title role but is regrettably outfitted to resemble an utter moron. Miranda Richardson (Fred Claus (2007)) is dressed as a 1990s goth version of a witch; she fights Martin Short (A Simple Wish (1997)) as a gnome and Helena Bonham Carter (Live from Baghdad (2002, TV movie)) in the contest of who looks dumbest in Merlin.

The effects are mostly failures, (the speaking rock being an exception.) The photography of this hideous jumble is horrid and over-lit, entirely without vision. All things being equal though, one can't rob Merlin of having a certain enthusiasm about its own narrative.

 

Related post:

 

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the miniseries here

 

Cost: 30 mil. $

Box office: None - TV miniseries

= Uncertain

[Merlin premiered 26 April (US and Canada) and runs 182 minutes over the course of 3 episodes. Shooting took place in Wales and England from October 1997 - February 1998. It aired on NBC and achieved record ratings with viewership of estimated 70 mil. people. It won 4/15 Primetime Emmy nominations and was nominated for 4 Golden Globes among other honors. Hallmark Entertainment followed up with miniseries Merlin's Apprentice (2006) with returning Neill and Richardson. Barron returned with Arabian Nights (2000, miniseries) and theatrically with Rat (2000). Neill returned in The Horse Whisperer (1998). 21k IMDb users have given Merlin a 7.1/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of Merlin? 

Empire of the Sun (1987) - Spielberg's grand production of boy-in-China-during-WWII is a misfire

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A plane crashes and burns against a huge sun and a boy whooping from the ground on this attractive poster for Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun

A resourceful son of a wealthy British family in Shanghai's International Settlement during WWII gets lost from his parents in the city around the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and occupation of Shanghai. He spends the remaining years of the war sustaining himself in various camps.

Empire of the Sun is the 10th theatrical feature from Ohioan master filmmaker Steven Spielberg (Firelight (1964)). It is an adaptation of the same-titled, semi-autobiographical 1984 novel by J.G. Ballard (Crash (1973)), written by Tom Stoppard (Brazil (1985)).
Young Christian Bale (The Portrait of a Lady (1996)), whose second movie this was, makes an impression as the robust kid protagonist, but unfortunately his somewhat Oliver Twist-like character goes through the multitude of horrors the war confronts him with fairly untouched, which becomes awfully unengaging to follow for audiences like myself. He seems too far removed from it all to activate my empathy much. This is fatal for the film, which doesn't have any other seriously compelling characters.
The production is impressively huge, and the boy's flight through the chaos of Shanghai gives Empire of the Sun some of its few exciting minutes. Unfortunately the film is long-winded, boring and grandiloquent, one of the times that Spielberg's verve for classical storytelling did not succeed in producing a great film.

Related posts:

Steven Spielberg: War Horse (2011) - Spielberg visits WWI with problematic horse drama Super 8 (2011) - Abrams' nostalgic family crowdpleaser (producer)
Band of Brothers - TV mini-series (2001) - WWII-sacrifice and -comradeship portrayed with skill and integrity (producer)
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - A robot fairy tale with both heart and mind
Amistad (1997) or, Must... Free... Slaves! 
Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Spielberg's greatest accomplishment
1941 (1979) - Spielberg's bizarre 'comedy spectacular' sinks like a rock  
Top 10: Best car chases in movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Duel (1971) - Spielberg's truck terror is ideal afternoon fare

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 35 mil. $
Box office: 66.7 mil. $ 
= Big flop
[Empire of the Sun premiered 8 December (Westwood, California) and runs 154 minutes. English master filmmaker David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)) worked towards directing the film for a year before handing it over to Spielberg, believing it to be "too similar to a diary." Spielberg, on the other hand, had a strong personal connection with it and has called the film his "most profound work on the loss of innocence." Filming took place from March - June 1987 in Spain, England and China, where the production was the first American one to shoot in Shanghai since the 1940s, lasting 3 weeks there. A big part of the effort was to get the flight sequences and planes right. An amusing trivia is that Ben Stiller, who stars in the film in a small part as Dainty, at age 22 at the time, has since said that he got the idea for his war movie-ridiculing Tropic Thunder (2008) during shooting of Empire of the Sun. The film had a disappointing North-American release: It opened limited in 225 theaters to a 1.3 mil. $ first weekend at #9 and widened to bring in 2.9 mil. $ two weeks later in 673 theaters, still only at #9, eventually grossing 22.2 mil. $ (33.3 % of the total gross) domestically. Roger Ebert gave the film a tepid review and 2.5/4 stars, translating to a notch better than this review. The film was still nominated for 6 Oscars: Best Cinematography (Allen Daviau), lost to Vittorio Storaro for The Last Emperor, Score (John Williams), lost to The Last Emperor; Art-Set Decoration, Costume Design, Sound Design and Film Editing, all also lost to Bernardo Bertolucci's great The Last Emperor. The film was also nominated for 2 Golden Globes, 6 BAFTAs, winning 3, a David di Donatello award (Italy's Oscar) as well as winning 4 National Board of Review awards. Empire of the Sun is fresh at 70 % with a 6.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

Now: What do YOU think of Empire of the Sun?
Share your opinion and thoughts in a comment

Spider (2002) - Cronenberg takes us to the tormented (and slightly dull) mind of a schizophrenic

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Dark murkiness, cobwebs and Ralph Fiennes on the poster for David Cronenberg's Spider

Spider is a David Cronenberg (Eastern Promises (2007)) psychological drama, (often referred to as a thriller, but since its suspense is so meager, I'd label it a drama), which is an adaptation by Patrick McGrath (The Grotesque (1995) novel and script) of his own novel.
The story in the movie is moved forward by our very subjective implicit storyteller-protagonist, "Spider"/Mr. Cleg, who is arriving at a halfway house [a rehabilitation center where people who have left an institution, such as a hospital or prison, are helped to readjust to the outside world], where he lives with other mentally ill men, while memories carry him back to his childhood.
Spider is a very slow film, from its 3 minute Rorschach credit intro to getting to know Mr. Cleg ever so slowly, and to finally understand, about halfway into the film, what the main suspense will be: How did that sweet little boy become this schizophrenic man?
It is a very passive suspense, also because nearly all of the important action is thus relayed to revisits to old memories. And ultimately too passive and underplayed to consider Spider as a thriller in my mind. It is a psycho-drama, especially fit for the reflectively inclined or for those with curiosity about a schizophrenic's condition.

Ralph Fiennes as David Crornenberg's Spider

Spider benefits greatly from inspired performances from its lead Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List (1993)), who plays Spider with strong sympathetic insight, and from Gabriel Byrne (Miller's Crossing (1990)) and Miranda Richardson (The Crying Game (1992)). Neither Cronenberg, Fiennes nor Richardson received any salaries for their work in order to make the film come to life on its small budget.
The film plays tricks on us, through its unstable, disturbed storyteller, and this provides some of the insight into the character's fate. But in the end, the tag-line of the general poster above, ('The only thing worse than losing your mind is finding it again'), did not resonate clearly with what I saw in the film. In general, when hearing the actors and filmmakers talk of the film, I get the sense that they have left too much information beneath the floorboards as subtext in Spider. I understand why they left out narration, but somehow I feel that Cronenberg-McGrath should have told us more somehow.
In Cronenberg's impressive oevre, Spider is one of the few underplayed films. To see the Canadian 'king of venereal horror' in his opposite corner, probably the most overplayed of his film is The Fly (1986). Spider was lauded as a truly great film by scores of critics in '02, but it eludes me, since I just can't get very excited about it. Cronenberg's best movies in my opinion are Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), Blood Brothers (1988), Naked Lunch (1991), A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007). - And that is quite a bunch. Cronenberg is one of cinema's masters of today.

The details:

Spider is elevated by a humorous role as a nervous lunatic played by John Neville (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)), which brightens the film up a bit.
It is an otherwise pretty oppressive experience, (as inhabiting the mind of a schizophrenic ought to be, I suppose), heightened also by Cronenberg's distinct framings, this time with the help of cinematographer Peter Suschitzky (Mars Attacks! (1996)). Cronenberg has a strong imagination and a keen eye for the evocative, which is put to good use in Spider, especially with the gas plant outside the row-house.
Cronenberg has finished his coming movie Maps to the Stars (2014), which Film Excess can't wait to see in a cinema.

Related reviews:

David Cronenberg: Cosmopolis (2012) - Cronenberg/DeLilli/Pattinson's speculative limo lullaby
A History of Violence (2005) or, Who Is Tom Stall? 
The Brood (1979) or, Marital Fury and Craze!

Watch the trailer here

Budget: 10 mil. $
Box office: 5.8 mil. $
= Big flop

What do you think of Spider?
What is your favorite Cronenberg film?

Blackadder Goes Forth - season 4 (1989) - A low-point WWI-trenches adieu

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From the left: Tim McInnerny, Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry, Tony Robinson and Hugh Laurie in costume for BBC's Blackadder season 4

QUICK REVIEW:

Despite its gathering of all the Blackadder regular actors for the first time in the same season; Rowan Atkinson, Miranda Richardson, Hugh Laurie, Tim McInnerny, Stephen Fry and Tony Robinson, - this is the laxest season in the (a)historical sitcom's four runs.
Metal fatigue and endless repetitions in the argument-routine have now become staples in Blackadder, which has recommenced in a WWI-trench in Goes Forth.
The style is unchanged; vulgar and yet sophisticated British satire, and the show still has quite a few laughs to its credit, e.g. in episode 2, Corporal Punishment, wherein George (Laurie) defends Blackadder in a capital punishment trial. In episode 4, Private Plane, an actual flight scene is included, along with funny Rik Mayall (Guest House Paradiso (1999)) as the womanizer Lord Flash-heart.
In the sixth and last episode, Goodbyeee, SPOILER everyone perishes in a rain of bullets, rather befitting the show.
This fourth season has reminisces of the American war-sitcom M*A*S*H* (1972-83), but the problem here is that Atkinson, - the title character and jet engine of the comedy, - walks in circles here and isn't terribly enthusiastic or energetic, unfortunately.

Related reviews:

Blackadder the Third - season 3 (1987) - The royal silliness reaches its peak in fun and wits
Black-Adder II (1986) season 2 - More historic, English tomfooleries from BBC
The Black Adder - season 1 (1983) - Historic fooleries with Rowan Atkinson and co.
Rowan Atkinson: Bean/Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie/Bean: The Movie (1997) or, A Bean in America

Rowan Atkinson may look amusing here, but his level is not up to snuff overall in Blackadder Goes Forth

This is a recently made mock-trailer that presents the fourth season as a 'poignant war epic' and does so pretty well

Do you agree that the fourth season is the series' weakest?
Why/why not?

Black-Adder II - season 2 (1986) - More historic, English tomfooleries from BBC

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Rowan Atkinson again brings laughter as a new Black-Adder in the series' second season

QUICK REVIEW:

The BBC sitcom has in its second season scrolled forward in time to 1558, and the new protagonist is Lord Edmund, who is supposed to be Prince Edmund 'Black Adder' from the first season's great-grandson. - A fairly inconsequential, but nevertheless cunning way to continue the show, (as Black-Adder himself would have put it), - and an important one, as the original protagonist died in the last episode of the first season!
The second season is more flippant and sexually focused, (some would say vulgar or coarse), in its humor, involving such things as dildoes, fake breasts, vomit, prostitution and other auspicious subjects for its historic comedy. Another considerable change is that the new Edmund isn't the underdog outsider we knew in the first season: Here he is arrogantly ruling, with his helpers Baldrick and Percy, but always under the grace of Queen Elizabeth I. Unfortunately, Miranda Richardson (The Crying Game (1992)), who plays the queen, and Patsy Burne (Les Misérables (1998)), who plays her 'nursie', are two of the series' worst detractors; both are loud, hysterical and unfunny women.
The first season was apparently, although it is hard to imagine when seeing it today, too expensive for BBC, and the second season was therefore made under heavy economization; it has virtually no expensive scenes.

The opening title in the show's second season

Again there is only few episodes, so I will quickly sum them up one by one:

In the first episode, Edmund falls in love with someone who he thinks is a male servant, (homosexuality is still - as in the first season - a frequent subject.) 
In the wickedly funny Head, Rowan Atkinson as Edmund wears a sack on his head and acts as one of the persons, he had the bad fortune of executing prematurely.
In Potato Tom Baker has a brilliant role as Captain Rum, a traveling explorer.
In Beer, Edmund hurries between a drinking contest and a dinner with some confused, puritanical relations.
In the last episode, Chains, Edmund and the queen's helper Melchett get kidnapped by an evil German, but Edmund heroically saves the day, and the season ends with a wonderful dialog between Edmund and the queen:
Edmund: "Life without you was... as a broken pencil."
The queen: "Explain"
Edmund: "Pointless"
The series is still naughty, intelligent, funny-as-hell, theater-like television of the highest, British carat.

Related reviews:

Rowan Atkinson: Bean/Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie/Bean: The Movie (1997) or, A Bean in America
The Black Adder - season 1 (1983) - Historic fooleries with Rowan Atkinson and co.

Rowan Atkinson is still a find as the now arrogantly ruling lord Edmund

Watch the funny, original teaser trailer here

How do you find season 2 compared to the other seasons?
How can we get Rowan Atkinson out of his country-stupor and back to doing comedy?