My first impression was "This is handsomely mounted." But after the 9th time our adventurers had ridden across the same forest clearing I began to realise that production value alone - not that I'm decrying it - is not enough.

The film is slow. When stuff does happen it's done quite well, but heaven's above, there are some fairly long waits for something to happen.

Merlin himself is difficult to understand, difficult to warm to, and either written or performed badly.

The story is dull and underwritten.

The characters were unmemorable. They did nothing to etch themselves into my memory and I didn't care what happened to them.

It made a nice change to hear some English accents, though.

I think they tried to make Merlin look like Jesus in this movie in hopes of redeeming their own souls for creating something so beautiful and terribly foul. I have composed a small list of why you should/should not watch this film. Who am I to say what tickles your fancy…

1. The most ridiculous writing/acting paired with epically dramatic music to really push it to a level of nonsensicalness I wasn't sure could be possible.

2. Merlin sounds like someone who has inhaled a lot of exhaust fumes and looks like Jesus. His acting in this movie reminded me of the heartfelt and emotional acting Arnold did in Terminator.

3. The princess receives the legendary Excalibur sword not from the Lady in the Lake…but from the sword in the stone in the middle of lake After battling a clone of herself. Huh…? (It was a very Zelda: Ocarina of Time moment)

Finally the director had a shimmer of hope - a decent looking girl in the middle of lake, wearing a white shirt battling her clone in hand-to-hand combat. That's how memories are made! Hormone driven teens everywhere were on the edges of their seats with their fingers poised over the pause button. But no joy on that one…fail.

4. FLY…FLY…FLYYYYYY!!!!! (When you see this, think Fear and Loathing and I believe you will enjoy that insane close up of our diabolical villains face)

And what did he summon from the evil depths of hell?! BLACK Dragons?! Demon HELL bats?! Those creeper wraith guys from Harry Potter?! No, instead he summons Eagles…EAGLES! PUHLEEASSEEE!!! Everyone knows eagles are not for bad guys to use.

I will give you two reasons why; first of all, Gandalf uses eagles in Lord of the Rings and obviously he was a good guy. Secondly, America. If you are a bad guy and you try to use and eagle for gain, as soon as you summon it, it will find an American flag, burst through it and rip your face off. I've seen it a million times.

5. Try to think of something that wouldn't belong in a movie about Merlin and the Knight of the Round. Did you think of gorgons? You know, Medusa? Well if you did good on you, if you didn't welcome to the club.

If you enjoy suffering through B-Movies as much as I do, then sit on down and kiss a piece of your life goodbye. If however, you were hoping to see a really good movie about Merlin then you should steer clear.

SCI-FI Channel continues to go down hill. They take good actors and make stuff I can't make it all the way through without changing the channel. They kill decent shows like "Dresden Files" and deluge you with reality shows like "Ghost Hunters". Maybe they should change their name to Reality-FI :). Don't waste your time with this movie. The movie is slow paced with poor special effects. The story line is mediocre at best. None of the characters full develop. The move is a real bore with no substance or any real entertainment value. SCI-FI really need to rethink there approach to entertaining sci-fi fans. They have fallen off the mark and don't seem to be able to get on track.