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The two well-known actors, Helen Mirren and Nicol Williamson, pose deeper problems, and offer more radical solutions. Of Morgana, mistress of mandrake and sulfur, Mirren makes an armored, camp enchantress. Swathed in purple veils and seaweed capes, intoning Merlin's dread spells as if they contained the dirtiest and most sacred words in any world, incarcerating the wizard in a cocoon of cotton candy as she proclaims victory over her mentor, Mirren convinces that she could charm a kingdom—or a film— with her perfidy.
Her performance seems a model of restraint next to Williamson's Merlin. The voice sweeps from wail to whisper, from adenoidal giggle to basso preposteroso growl — often in the same sentence. It is a daring display, and an exhilarating one. Merlin is, after all, a man out of time: "Our days are numbered," he declaims to Morgana.
He realizes, as she does not, that the Christian epoch will have no room for a necromancer — or an ironic realist. Mer lin's time has come again in the post-Christian 20th century; it is fitting, then, that Williamson expresses both the juicy effluence of hoary ham acting and the quizzical underplaying of the Method. His Merlin is also a perfect avatar of the sorcerer behind the camera. Love Excalibur or hate it, but give Boorman credit for the loopy grandeur of his imagery and imaginings, for the sweet smell of excess, for his heroic gamble that a movie can dare to trip over its pretensions— and still fly. —By Richard Corliss