The wait is over! Well actually there's still a month until the official premier of Starz Camelot, but the network was kind enough to give us a preview of the series by streaming the first episode on their website. Having enjoyed their previous mini-series The Pillars of the Earth, I've been looking forward to their interpretation of the Arthur legend for some time, especially since my favorite actress, Eva Green, has a rather pivotal role in the story. Now whether or not Camelot will actually becomes a regular series in still up in the air, as far as I've read, it probably all depends on the success of the ten filmed episodes, but for me I'll take what I can get and a weekly dose of Eva Green can only be a good thing.
King Uther's daughter, Morgan (Eva Green) returns from her long term of banishment from the kingdom with a plan to seek revenge upon her father and usurp his throne. She swiftly carries out her plan by poisoning her father and banishing her stepmother, who had stood by as Morgan's mother was murdered and her father had banished her. Taking control of the kingdom she sends a message to his most hated enemy offering an alliance between them, she will be the Queen, he will be the King.
Meanwhile Merlin (Joseph Fiennes) is off to fetch the unknown son of Uther, Morgan's half brother, Arthur. Arthur had been taken from his mother at birth by the will of the King and given to a farming family to educate him and keep him safe, at a later time Merlin would return for him when the time was right. Learning of his royal lineage is obviously a shock to Arthur, but he agrees to follow Merlin to the ruins of Camelot where he will begin his new life and hopefully save Britain from a chaos that Merlin has foreseen. Of course Morgan, unaware she ever had a brother, will not back down quietly and encourages Arthur to back-out of Merlin's plans before it's too late.
One thing I learned with the Starz mini-series The Pillars of the Earth is you've got to give the writers time build up to something truly exciting. Every episode of that series got better, I can only hope to expect the same from Camelot. In saying this I am in no way inferring the first episode is bad, it's not, but there is a lot of back-story and characters that have to be introduced in this first episode that make it a little less fulfilling than I expect the series to become.
In waiting for the series to begin I predicted the best performances to come from Eva Green and Joseph Fiennes, and that definitely was the case. Green simply excels in every role I've seen her in and even more exceptionally in the roles where she plays a rather dark and twisted character, which is the case here. Expect her to be the highlight performance of the series. I have a little boost of confidence for Jamie Campbell Bower (the young Arthur), after expecting him to be awful he played the part well, now we'll have to wait and see how his performance changes as Arthur becomes more comfortable with his new role, can he overcome his youthful look and become an Arthur that is not so naive? Overall, I was pleased with the premiere episode, while the beginning was a little slow (which was to be expected) the final 15 minutes of the episode left me excited for what the series could potentially grow into and the level excitement it could produce.
I haven't seen The Pillars of the Earth yet, but I've been immensely enjoying STARZ's 'Spartacus: Blood and Sand' and the prequel 'Gods of the Arena'. Far from 'Camelot' being bad, I have to say that after seeing all the badass warriors like Spartacus, Crixus, Gannicus, Doctore and others, seeing this girlie-looking Arthur was somewhat lame.
ReplyDeleteI hope they develop him, and he matures into a badass also. A big plus of the series, aside from Eva Green, is the excellent James Purefoy.
@V. Shaft - I watched the first episode of Spartacus when it first came out and just couldn't get into it. The horrible CGI scenery and campy blood just didn't impress me. Maybe it's gotten better since then.
ReplyDeleteI get your Arthur comment, I too was a little weary of the casting choice, I guess they're going Disney Sword and the Stone with that move. Will be interesting to see how it pans out. But as long as Green gets plenty of screen time I'm satisfied no matter what.
A not about 'Spartacus', it gets better. The first two or three episodes were more straightforward, with focus on sex and violence. But once the story starts to unravel, the series gets amazing as th focus shifts from the gore and sex to actual character development (though, of course, sex and violence remain a constant throughout).
ReplyDelete(I've even shown 'Spartacus' DVD's to my mom once, who is of age 50+, and she devoured the whole series in three days!)
@V Shaft - maybe eventually I'll give it another shot. Have too many series I'm in of the middle of or planning to get into.
ReplyDelete