King Arthur (Richard Short, Mary Kills People) has been away from Camelot and his Queen Guinevere (Stella Stocker) for the past 5 years fighting a brutal, bloody battle against the Romans. He left his illegitimate son Modred (Joel Phillimore, The Halcyon, EastEnders) in charge while he was away, but Mordred has grown corrupt and seeks to overthrow his father to become King. So Arthur reunites with Merlin (Richard Brake, Sanctuary), Lancelot (Tim Fellingham, Fearless), and his other knights for a journey back to Camelot to take back the castle and the crown. However, Mordred has enlisted the help of an evil witch, and has partnered with the Saxon army.

I will just cut to the chase on this review—Arthur & Merlin: Knights of Camelot is not a good movie. Had I not been watching it for review, I would have turned it off after 30 minutes. I didn’t think it was possible to make the legend of King Arthur & Merlin so incredibly boring, but I was proved wrong. The film opens with a younger Arthur and Lancelot making their way through the woods, where they come across a beautiful woman in white calling for help. However, as Arthur approaches her, he discovers that she is really an old witch, calling to him with her siren song. She then attacks Arthur, and looks to be biting him like a vampire or a zombie when Lancelot dispatches her. She turns to smoke and reveals her true form, but this weird bite thing is never addressed again, so I’m not quite sure what happened there. The film then jumps 5 years, with narration telling you that Arthur has been fighting in a bloody battle against the Romans. That battle would have made a far more interesting film! Instead we now discover that Arthur is a drunk, participates in cabin fighting matches, and sleeps around. He has been avoiding going as he feels like a failure as a King and as a person. However, when an attempt is made on the lives of him and his men. He discovers that his son is trying to overthrow him as king. So he and his men start their journey back home to Camelot. The main crux of the film follows these men walking through various landscapes making their way back to the castle. Meanwhile, Mordred prepares to force Guinevere to marry him and become king. Along their journey, the men experience some confusing flashbacks, Arthur has to confront his past and has a couple heart-to-hearts with Merlin, and the men have another encounter with a witch disguising herself as a beautiful woman who tries to kill them.

Arthur & Merlin: Knights of Camelot felt like a sequel to a seemingly non-existent (and likely more exciting) first film. But it’s the sequel that no one asked for, after all the exciting action and magic is over. We’re also never really given any backstory on any of these characters—it’s assumed we just know who they all are. Despite them all having (somewhat recognizable) names, they all feel like generic knights, so I’m not sure why the viewer should care when some of them are killed off. In this story, Arthur is older and seems to have given up on his job as king, that is until someone tries to kill him, and then suddenly he wants to get back home to rule and be with his wife. He complains several times to Merlin that he lost his sword, but we are never told what actually happened to it. Also, it seems that the Knights of the Round Table are also not quite a thing anymore, but once again we are not given any details as to what happened. The film is called Arthur & Merlin, however, the titular wizard only appears in two short scenes, totaling under 5 minutes of screen time. If anything it should have been called Arthur & Mordred. The only thing this film really has going for it is the setting—there are some really beautiful backdrops along the knights’ journey.

The DVD presentation is bare-bones. The disc comes packed in a clear eco DVD keepcase without a slipcover. No bonus material, subtitles or digital copy is included. The lack of subtitles was somewhat annoying because the audio track is incredibly loud and front heavy, with the booming music sometimes drowning out some of the dialog. All of these knights started to blend together after a while, so it also would have been nice to be able to see the names printed on the screen to help remember who was who. Also, for a 5.1 audio track, I didn’t really notice any use of the surround channel. The picture quality was better than the audio, providing a somewhat decent picture, though it was certainly lacking the extra clarity of an HD release.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:30:53)

Blu-ray:
• 480i / Anamorphic Widescreen 2.39:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, English Dolby Stereo 2.0
• Subtitles: None

Extras:

There is no bonus material.

Final Thoughts:

I usually love these Arthurian legend based stories, but Arthur & Merlin: Knights of Camelot was an utter disappointment. I hardly ever recommend just complete skipping a release, but I would have quit this one after 30 minutes had I not received it for review. For the most part it was just incredibly boring, and sometimes confusing film. It’s like they purposely picked the most uninteresting piece of the Arthurian legend they could tell a story around, and also completely under-utilized one of the title characters. There was some beautiful scenery and a decent fight sequence at the end, but overall, I would suggest skipping this barebones DVD with its lackluster technical presentation.