Netflix’s “Cursed” is the latest in an ever-growing list of shows that attempt to capitalize on the success of “Game of Thrones.”
And like many of those previous shows — and the last two seasons of “Game of Thrones — it falls flat on its face — attempting to supplant quality storytelling, engaging developed characters and a well thought out plot with spectacle and action. But “Cursed” can’t even provide entertaining spectacle, as its shoestring budget prevents it from offering little more than horribly choreographed battles with no more than four or five people on screen at a time and one-on-one duels filled with enough cuts to give susceptible viewers seizures and CG that wouldn’t look out of place in a direct-to-Syfy production.
“Cursed” is a “modern” — translation: gritty, unimaginative and derivative — retelling of the legend of King Arthur and the sword of power. Nimue, the future Lady of the Lake who will ultimately give Arthur Excalibur, is a fae girl living in the forest with her people when they’re attacked by the Red Priests, a group of crusading monks from the Roman Catholic Church, who want to wipe out all “unnatural” people. It’s perfectly understandable to question why the priests are attacking so many people, when — almost certainly due to budget reasons — almost every fae person looks like a normal human. There’s nothing to indicate Nimue is a fae beyond having powers over the earth for which even her own people cast her out.
With her dying breath — we’ve never seen this trope before — Nimue’s mother gives her the sword of power to give to Merlin. Unlike most tellings, this Merlin is a drunk fool with no magic whom everyone in the world hates for limitless transgressions that are never expanded upon. No one likes Merlin, that’s all you need to know. Random people and creatures show up in episodes to kill him, characters curse his name and threaten him and some woman in black follows him around, but none of this is ever elaborated on.
Because the story has to be as edgy as possible, Arthur is a criminal, Uther Pendragon is an illegitimate king who is as much of an idiot as he is insecure, Morgana goes by the Lady Igraine just because it acts as a subversion of expectations of anyone watching who knows anything about the lore of King Arthur. The story goes out of its way to tear down all of the great characters of the story, or to completely twist them into something completely different until they’re only that character in name only.
Even separating “Cursed” from its source material inspiration, the show offers little, if any, redeeming qualities beyond that of wasting time during quarantine absolutely hate watching the show — all to see how bad it truly gets before being put out of its misery with a cliffhanger of an ending that makes no sense. Entire episodes are dedicated to the most mundane of character machinations that lead nowhere. It takes five episodes for Nimue to finally meet Merlin, only for her to reject him for reasons that are never explained. Another episode sees Nimue throw the sword of power into the bottom of a cave in a temper tantrum, only to send another character to retrieve it immediately. Why? Because there’s enough material to fill a six-episode series that needed to be stretched across 10.
The ultimate subversion of “Cursed” is that King Arthur is not important, but Nimue is. She’s the key to the survival of Britania as Uther fights some random Norseman, who looks like he walked off the set of “Vikings,” shows up six episodes in and proclaims he’s king. There’s nothing wrong with embracing the female heroes of stories and reframing them in a better light. One of the best King Arthur adaptations in recent memory was “Mists of Avalon,” which focused on the female characters of the legend.
But Nimue is an absolutely terrible character. She shows no development over 10 episodes, and no consistency in her actions. She lashes out at other characters, she changes her positions and motivations almost instantaneously and she shows absolutely no motivation to move forward in the story. Her character is molded by what the plot demands in the moment, and nothing more. One season in the books, and she’s no different than when she started out the show.
“Cursed” had the chance to fill that campy genre void left by the likes of “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” or “Xena: Warrior Princess.” But it takes itself too seriously, trying to be as edgy and mean-spirit as possible, while lacking the budget or production skill to elevate it above trashy entertainment. There’s just nothing here to recommend, unless you’re really bored. It’s impossible to recommend this show to King Arthur fans because of how much it absolutely desecrates the legends in some attempt at being “original.” But as we’ve seen in recent years with “Robin Hood” and “King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword,” some stories don’t need to be reinvented. Just give us a quality adaptation of the source material as it is, rather than changing it to fit cynical, modern sensibilities. It’s a curse to have to sit through this for 10 hours.
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September 20, 2020 at 01:00PM
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Netflix's 'Cursed' a cynical waste of a great legendary story - The Lawton Constitution
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