Cursed (Netflix) S01: C-

This series is a vamped up version of the King Arthur legend. A young Arthur (played by Devon Terrell), a mercenary still not a king, encounters Nimue (played by Katherine Langford) who is destined to become the Lady Of The Lake told in the Arturian legend, she has a special power, she thinks is a curse, like many do in this type of stories. She's given a special sword by her mother, before she's killed by the Red Paladins. Her mother tells Nimue to take the sword to Merlin (played by Gustaf Skarsgård). Arthur and Nimue would join forces to lead the rebellion against the rule of the red paladins.

After Lord Of The Rings every single studio was looking for the next gigantic fantasy franchise, then came Game Of Thrones and again every network and streaming service was looking for the next global fantasy hit, even HBO, the prequel series is already going into production. Netflix is trying not to rely in a single hit title but to have a bunch of hits under they sleeve. The Witcher was released earlier this year with a fairly good reception, although I don't really understand why, they probably saw a different series than I did.

Fans of Frank Miller were really exited to see the adaption of Cursed come to life and with the creator himself overlooking the production. After all Sin City and 300 have grown a cult following over the years. But probably the problem relies on its writer Tom Wheeler responsible of the Puss In Boots saga and the Lego Ninja Movie. Yes a not very impressive resume, but for some reason he was given the task to adapt Miller's work.

To bring on the tweens into the series they brought Katherine Langford from 13 Reasons Why, playing the title role of Nimue a young girl that finds out he has the power to control nature, but still without knowing how to control her powers, after killing some people whenb she felt in danger, she sees her powers as a curse, when in fact is the sign of how special she is.

To bring the fantasy fans they brought Gustaf Skarsgård from Vikings, to play Merlin, a drunk and drunk of power version of the famous literary wizard. The character is actually not that very different from Floki, the charater he plays on Vikings.

It seemed like Netflix had the summer hit they wanted and that under a pandemic would take social media by storm, just like Stranger Things, 13 Reasons Why and Dark. But it didn't. This goes more in line of so many to name productions, that wanted to build a franchise but ended up forgotten. Not because of its lack of production quality. Cursed looks great, great wardrobe design, stellar locations, good make up. It just lacks of charm, the problem might be heavily on a poor script.

The story failed to hook me up, it felt weak, never really connected with any of its characters. Gustaf seems to be doing the same thing he did at Vikings and Katherine well, she seems to be doing her best, just the script she got lacks of that magic that a fantasy saga needs to hook the audience.

Also it doesn't help those animated transitions, they do seem cheap and take points from the production. At times it feels like they didn't wanted to spend into long shots of Katherine walking thru the forest or a clever idea to give the notion to the audience that time passed by. Or to set us in a different location to the previous scene.

Netflix will probably renew this series for a second season, they invested too much to let it die with just one season, but a future beyond a second season seems unlikely for this series, unless something extraordinary happens in season 2.