Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

I give it the two points for being pretty and making the attempt, but the end result was just so bad when considered as a whole. The first hour had me excited that they may have gotten it right, the next had me squirming in discomfort, and the last had me sorely disappointed in a way that I haven't been since the movie adaptation of "A Prayer for Owen Meany"... and that was at least a little forgivable in that Irving had the foresight to disassociate Simon Birch with the book as much as possible.This is NOT the book. This actually insults the book pretty heavily. It might have been better if they'd called it by another name and said it was "Inspired By..." or something, because saying this is based on the book is selling a bill of goods that doesn't deliver. It is about as loosely based as one could imagine.Honestly, why can't producers make a GOOD version of the Arthurian legend? Game of Thrones has proved it could be done. But this steaming pile, along with the blandly mediocre "Excalibur" seem to suggest no one is willing to take the source material and make a great movie out of an equally great novel.I hold out hope that someone steps up and takes another crack at MZB's book--it's well worth telling right.

"So ever read the book?" Henry asked, "Seems like the kind of book you would have read, in your days..."Kristl frowned, "My days? Sounds like I have outlived my shelf live. ""Eh.. Well I mean, from when you were younger. When you read these books. Fantasy and such."Kristl gave Henry a look, "Gosh, you are starting to scare me.""Scare you?""Well, you are actually right, I have not read much fantasy for a long time. I got a bit tired with the copy and paste books that flooded the market. And we did not have the internet then to figure out the good from the bad. Or even the mediocre from the bad. You had to read the blurb and page through the book. Hundreds of them.""See.. I can listen," Henry smiled sanguinely."Oh.. ah.. Well, we might even make a good woman out of you yet.""Let's not go overboard now.""But the answer is no. I picked it up once as it had intriguing cover of a woman riding a horse and holding something up. A staff I think. Like a magic user.""And?""I gave it a try but never got past the first few pages. Perhaps I had lost interest in the whole Arthur legend at that time. The Arthur legend was another dead horse that was beaten ad nausea.""But did you read it , Henry?" Kristl asked."Nuu.. Fantasy is not my kind of thing.""So what do you think of this women movie.""Well.. it is a bit quaint.""Quaint?" Kristl said."Well it was nice to see eh the woman side of it all, but it was kind of uneventful.""No kick ass girls in this one.""And full of 'functional' sex and even incest. I mean. It was as if the whole woman side of the Arthur legend consisted of scheming, backstabbing, incest and sex.""Apparently.""I wonder if it was written by a man.. a misogynistic one, " Henry said.Kristl laughed, "I was told Marion Zimmer Bradley was a woman. Perhaps the book gives a more favorable angle on the story. Turning a book into a movie usually means that the story has to be condensed and suffer.""Yeah.""I wonder if you can follow the story if you do not have some background information. Like it is never quite explained why Lot hates Arthur.""Some things are also strange. Like when Uther Pendragon sneaks into the castle of Gorlois, disguised as Gorlois, and beds Igraine she gets knocked up and then marries Pendragon, " Henry said."Hmm," Kristl said."Strange is also the decision of Morgause to spare Mordred. She first wants to kill him when he is a newborn baby but when the delirious Morgaine blurts out he is actually Arthur's son, she spares him..But why? They say that when Arthur has no sons, they are next in line for the throne. So why let Mordred live?""I got the feeling that much what was in the book could not be put into the movie and thus we lack events that probably would make the story more 'sensible'," Kristl said."Another strange thing is the passivity of Morgaine. I mean it seems like almost everything is happening to her and she is a bit helpless in the face of it. Like oh, right I am taken away to this Island to become a priestess. Oh right, I have to have sex with this guy in some ancient ritual. Oh right, I am to be married off to king Uriens.""Oh wow, that was one of the dumbest scene ever. Arthur discussing with Uriens to arrange for a wedding and then when they ask Morgaine if she wants to marry this 'royal person' from Wales, they forget to mention that is was the father Uriens they meant and not his son. That was so lame. As if such political decisions were done in such a offhand manner. I would grant that Morgaine would probably have had no choice, but the movie suggests it was a mistake and that she could not back out after it had been arranged for fear of Uriens losing face.""So?" Henry said."To wrap it up?" Krisl queried."Still a reasonable movie to watch, I think. Just for the story line.""And the acting is decent. Not very good, but passable.""Yeah. But the fighting and magic is lame. It is as if people are afraid of hurting each other. And that absurd way of fighting of Mordred. Did he travel to China to learn that tactic?" Henry said and continued, "And did it not strike you as odd that Morgaine at one time suddenly became this killer fighter? Throughout the whole movie we see her never touch a sword and then when she gets ambushed she kills half a dozen of these Saxon raiders. Wow. Way to go girl.""I think fighting came natural to women in those days. Men had to work hard for it," Kristl smiled."Yeah.. right. As 'natural' as in that women always hit something when they park their cars backwards.""Not much of a 'skill'. And not true at all. A fable. A persistent recurring one. I wonder if we are still claimed to bump into things while parking when flying spacecrafts.""Well fables tend to linger on.. so I guess you are stuck with it one way or another. It just morphs into something new.""And no doubt we will be seeing another Arthur legend.. maybe next time it will be about gay relations.""Or aliens.""Or gay aliens.""Now that is an idea."

...you will probably NOT enjoy the movie adaptation. Although the movie starts out well enough and I could easily ignore some of the exclusions to the story with the understanding that it was only three hours long, the changes to the plot in the last hour infuriated me. It almost seemed like they took the concept (a woman's report of the King Arthur legend) and glossed it over for a cheap rendition of the classic tale. Much of the personal strife experienced by Morgaine was glossed over and the ridiculous piousness and prejudice of Gwenevere was missing completely. One of the most moving parts of the book for me was Viviaine's demise and it was re-scripted to make it "idiot proof". The acting of the ladies particularly Anjelica Huston and Juliana Margolis was very good but the male ensemble was weak and unbelievable to me. Also one of the starkest omissions was the circumstances surrounding Gwenevere's betrothal. (no horses? what on earth?!?) Anyway to end my rambling it wasn't a great adaptation of the book, but stand alone it wasn't a terrible movie...

This movie was tiresome, and extremely tragic. It provided the viewer with nothing to believe in besides himself, without any good reasons that that is a good thing to do. Guilt and fear run throughout the story, and an overly acute sense of heirlessness do not give enough oomph to produce a strong plot.The spiritual side of the drama provides no focus for the action, nor hope to give the movie heart. The conflict between the pagan religion and Christianity is in the forefront, but the viewer is confused as to which he should prefer. Should he love the old pagan religion, that curses the queen to childlessness, and makes an heir out of incest? Or should he love Christianity, which seems in this movie to be a guilt trip put on us by the priests? Being at a loss for an answer, it seems to leave us with the conclusion that we are left in this world to make what of it what we may (I dare say a theme far too common in adventure movies these days). On the one side, this is convenient, since then I do not need to be concerned for right and wrong. However, in practice this does not add up, since adultery is still really wrong, even if it was actually condoned by the king himself!? But the worst part of this godless world where one has to survive on his own, is that man does such a great job ruining his life, in this movie. Incest, death in the family, jealousy, adultery, barrenness, betrayal, curses, and an outrageous amount of focus on the lack of an heir seem to be all that he can produce in this life without any true hope in something eternal, or at least supernatural.Criticism aside, many other aspects of the movie, such as characters, acting, and effects, and music, these are all great, in my opinion. More than expected for a TV movie, for sure. This is why I have rated it with six stars, not with five.Something else which bothered me was the amount of focus on the intrigues surrounding the king's son. I think that focusing on this, and building so much drama around this point is in principle a wrong equation for suspense. It is sort of like having a story be not about wealth, but poverty. Because the heir was actually sort of the greatest form of equity, and real wealth, that a king could have. And then, when the negative suspense is resolved, of who is going to take the king's place when he is gone, the actual heir reveals himself to worse than no heir at all! A mixed signal to the analytical mind who could come up with this motto: Who wants to have kids, if they sometimes wind up betraying their own parents? So much emptiness, contrary to expectation. Although I normally like adventure movies, and don't need to have adrenaline rushing through me to enjoy a movie, for me, this movie lacked the driving motive of a compelling story, with too much focus on the mundane and the morbid, leaving me craving something which never emerged from the fog. Well done, with great acting, and good effects may be to its credit, but the raw materials of the story, and mainly the focus of the drama, is so tragic and hopeless, making this movie, at least for me, hard to enjoy.