ARTHUR & MERLIN is an indie-budget retelling of the Arthurian legends, in which the heroic Arthur and Merlin must join forces to tackle an evil druid and King Voltigern. What I can say in this film's favour is that it's actually set in the Dark Ages unlike most Arthurian retellings, so it looks good; the costumes and wooden huts all have that air of authenticity to them. Unfortunately the film itself is clumsily plotted and quite boring, lacking the most basic elements of structure and narrative to make it remotely watchable. The cast give bored performances, there's no attempted characterisation, and the story just drags and drags.

"Arthur & Merlin" is a 100-minute fantasy film from the United Kingdom and as a consequence this is of course in the English language. This one runs for 100 minutes (without credits) and was directed and co-written by Marco van Belle, certainly his most known work so far, but then again he has not been too prolific yet in his career. The title already tells us that the film focuses on two characters that have appeared in film many times already. I keep reading that this one here is a low budget production, but honestly, it was not that visible during most of the film. Costumes and sets are solid and if there was any point where you could actually see it, then this would be the acting which wasn't that great and there were one or two moments when it had a touch of a high school / college play production. Anyway, I also think that the film is a bit too long for its own good as some sequences and scenes do not feel that important or relevant and I'd have been perfectly fine with an 80-minute film here. No need to stuff it and drag it any further/longer. But like I already said, there were also some okay components here. I think some of these also have to do with the general story though as the characters are simply epic and it's not really an achievement by van Belle or any of the actors or anybody else working on this project. This is also why in terms of the creativity and quality of the overall outcome, there is simply not enough good to let me really recommend this. I give it a thumbs-down and suggest you watch something else instead unless you really care about this old Arthur/Merlin saga. Oh well, on the other hand, maybe then you especially should not see it. Your choice.

Set in the dark ages of an ancient magical Celtic Britain, Arthur and Merlin is an origin story where we see the two characters meet as children before the story goes forward fifteen years when they become adults.

Arthfael (Kirk Barker) is a young Celtic warrior from Cornwall who has been banished to his lands and he teams up with the wizard Myrrdin (Stefan Butler) who has been hiding out in the forest utilising his magical powers to defeat a powerful druid who has the attention of the old king and who wishes to destroy the Celtic people.

The film has all the elements of a quest and obviously inspired by the Lord of the Rings movies and John Boorman's Excalibur but with an extremely low budget. There are several scenes of an overhead crane camera shot following a group as they run along the hills. However the story is thin and the film is overlong where it starts to drag early on.

I was surprised to find that the film was shot in England, I first thought it was one of these films made in eastern Europe and they made good use of the rural/countryside locations.

However with the recent popular adaptation of Merlin made by the BBC the Arthurian tales need an extra dimension to attract an audience and unfortunately my young son was never entirely enticed by this film.