Knights of Bloodsteel
The Four Knights of Mirabilis
Television Mini-Series Review
Knights of Bloodsteel , originally released by the Sci-Fi (aka Syfy) Channel April 2009, is a two-part television mini-series that is about good versus evil in a fantasy quest format. This mini-series is true to its fantasy-adventure genre with knights taking up a quest, dragon slaying, dangers to overcome, goblins, elves, and humans. Knights of Bloodsteel is entertaining; has excellent acting, creative costumes and the special effects are awesome, especially the invisible flying dragon. Very imaginative and does portray exquisitely a different world known as Mirabilis; beautiful, yet dangerous.
Knights of Bloodsteel depicts humans living peacefully with goblins and elves, but does show there is good and bad in each race of humanoid. Mirabilis is a land split into two warring factions: Dragon Eye (Mark Gibbon) and his brood of goblins against humans, elves and good goblins. The four knights chosen for the quest to find the crucible (an artifact that can create an endless supply of Bloodsteel, a type of magical red steel that can be made into almost anything including a pair of glasses that can help blind people see) are not the standard knightly virtuous do-gooders usually chosen for important quests and knighthood. Instead they are a very reluctant "down to earth" group. These knights had to be coerced into taking up the quest which the eleven wizard Tesselink (Christopher Lloyd) masterfully does; points out a very dire outcome for all who reside in Mirabilis if they do not fulfill their quest by finding the crucible before Dragon Eye.
The entire two part mini-series is a very lengthy 2 hours and 55 minutes; each section about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The first section sets the plot, includes the Oracle (Julian D. Christopher) foretelling how to recognize the four important knights (one from the north, one from south, one from east and one from the west) plus how they will find the crucible as well as become the saviors of Mirabilis. We find out how the four become the Four Knights of Mirabilis and how rocky the start of this quest truly is.
The second section is the quest. It displays how arduous the quest is by having them climb extremely high mountains where those on the quest can hardly breathe, encounter numerous dangers including Dragon Eye's goblin army that is searching for the crucible too. Knights of Bloodsteel is as slow paced as the J.R.R. Tolkien's books (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). There are, however, some good action scenes with great swordsmanship.
Included in the primary cast were (order as listed in credits): David James Elliott (human warrior-vigilante and knight), Natassia Malthe (Perfidia, elf bounty hunter, knight, and granddaughter to the elf wizard Tesselink), Christopher Jacot (Adric, human con-artist and knight), Dru Viergever (Ber-Lak, goblin with extrasensory powers and knight), Peter Bryant (Swope, General of Dragon Eye's goblin army in charge of finding the crucible first), MaKenzie Gray (Lord Splayven), Adrian Hough (Malcolm), Heather Doerksen (Orion), Gwynth Walsh (Raven), Brenna O'Brien (Talia), Deanna Milligan (Maya, human knighted by Perfidia as the Knight Messenger who traveled between the High Council of Mirabilis and the knights) and Ian Wallace (Klegg, the blind monk who had Bloodsteel glasses allowing him to see and could read ancient writing).
Knights of Bloodsteel is on DVD. The TV mini-series is rated NR. This has very adult material throughout the film. I personally do not recommend this mini-series for children or pre-teens. It is good entertainment. If a teen is considering watching this mini-series, I recommend parental discretion. The parent might want to watch this first before their teen does to make certain it is appropriate for their minor. Another thing for a parent to consider is watching Knights of Bloodsteel with their teenager as a quality family time experience. As a fellow Science Fiction and Fantasy fan, I recommend this television min-series for Fantasy genre lovers; especially those who are fond of J.R.R. Tolkien books!
Enjoy!
