Myriam Nys A carefully made fantasy series with high production values, good special effects, good acting and a fine screenplay. At times it achieves a real sense of creepy, invasive threat.The series, by the way, is both honest and brave in pointing out that soldiers and mercenaries are often held in deepest, deepest contempt, not so much by the enemy as by their own political leaders and commanders. As a result the series makes salutary viewing for those young men who dream of putting on a uniform and becoming a big bad soldier. Remember, boys, there is a good chance, statistically speaking, that the gallant general shown on the recruitment poster owes his stars and stripes to the fact that he wouldn't bat an eyelid if somebody strung you on a spit and burned you to death on a slow fire...Persons who like both the period and the concept could do worse than read the "Temeraire" novels by Naomi Novik. (Premise : "Have dragon, will travel".) As far as I know her novels have not (yet) been filmed.

inkslayer While the Napoleonic wars are raging, one powerful British magician has many reasons why he won't help another powerful British magician as he uses his magic on the battlefields and at home. Thoroughly enjoyable grownup fantasy based on Susanna Clarke's award-winning novel with several subplots that keeps the viewer interested, guessing, and entertained.If you love unusual stories having to do with magic, love period pieces, love magical special effects, noises that make you jump, and actors who take their craft seriously, then you'll keep your remote on play until you've watched all 406 minutes.

FilmAlicia My review contains mild spoilers: "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," Susannah Clarke's clever alternate history novel set in England during the Napoleonic wars, was no literary gimmick in the manner of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" or "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter." It was an impressive piece of fantasy literature which served as the basis for the outstanding 2015 BBC mini-series of the same name.If anything, the 900+ page story, adapted into a 7-part mini-series, seems like the prologue to a larger tale. I am reviewing the mini-series, and am hoping with many other viewers, and readers, that there will soon be a sequel.The central conflict in the story, from my perspective, concerns the pursuit of knowledge. Norrell and Strange have diametrically opposed attitudes to magical knowledge: While Norrell is inclined to keep secret, and hoard, magical knowledge, Strange thinks that knowledge should be dispensed freely to everyone who desires to use it, without sufficient awareness of the possibility that some might misuse it. The story's chief villain, the Gentleman, dispenses knowledge selectively, and, also controls how others employ it, magically manipulating them to prevent them from revealing what they know.Eddie Marsan is brilliant as Gilbert Norrell, conveying the character's fearfulness, timidity, and selfishness, while revealing occasional glimpses of a more childlike, winsome personality that make it impossible for us to completely hate him even when he continually does the wrong thing. Bertie Carvel exudes offbeat charm (and sex appeal) as Jonathan Strange, the more adventurous, impulsive, and generous of the two magicians, but also the one whose arrogance in the pursuit of magical knowledge recalls the story of Baron Frankenstein. As for the supporting characters, I particularly liked Enzo Cilenti (also sexy) as Childermass, Paul Kaye as Vinculus (though I couldn't really distinguish his character from the one he plays on "Game of Thrones") and Alice Englert, as Lady Pole. (Is Englert really Jane Campion's daughter? Wow!)Samuel West, as Sir Walter Pole was good, as he always seems to be, in yet another thankless role, and Ariyon Bakare, Charlotte Riley, and Vincent Franklin were all excellent as Stephen Black, Arabella Strange, and Drawlight. I must confess I was not wild about Marc Warren, as the Gentleman (with the Thistledown Hair). Although he was good at conveying the character's malevolence, I never really believed he was from a different world, as he didn't seem in the least uncanny. One reviewer described him as "like Sting dressed as a Q-tip for Halloween" – he reminded me of a bad Malcolm McDowell imitation, dressed in a mix of glam and grunge. Without giving away plot points, I think the story's conclusion left plenty of room for a sequel. Now that magic has returned to England, I can't wait to see what happens next!

FloodClearwater Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is still considered a trendy new novel in certain circles, circa 2015, and it gets trundled into the Fantasy genre as a film, and quality Fantasy novels take forever (e.g., The Hobbit, Dune) to get their filmed treatment, so I find it miraculous that the BBC produced this quite entertaining, high quality mini-serialization of Susanna Clarke's book so very rapidly.It is England, it is the early 19th century, and we want to know, does magic yet exist anymore? To give us the answer, along come Mr. Norrell, a near-elderly be- wigged, be-powdered batchelor-miser-scholar of a self-taught library thaumaturge, master of a Yorkshire abbey and two manservants, and far more interestingly, Jonathan Strange, that committed young, rascally, gadabouting, heirish man-about-town who is delighted to find the vocation of 'magician' dropped into his lap by fate. These two opposite characters begin to work some magicks and, it cannot be helped, break some china (and sell some souls?), and drama, intrigue, heartbreak, and mysteries ensue.Kind of.I say 'kind of' as the overall feel and palette of the series is rather dour, rather in need of a washcloth. The makeup artists were given just a tad too much instruction to smudge faces, powder hair, and brown teeth, and the result is that the physicality of the actors' faces, nearly all of the actors' faces, is trapped away by a dingy lens. And don't dour feelings make one want to rise up from the couch and find color, energy, and the magic of the animation inhering in a human face we can see properly?Example. Charlotte Riley. Very good actor. Rather stunning looking. She plays Jonathan Strange's objet d'amour. The costumers stick a Strawberry Shortcake Miss Muffet hat on her and seem to urge the second director et al to keep the camera lens as far from her as may be possible. Goodbye Ms. Riley, hello fungible crumpet-hatted harridan. Eddie Marsan, playing Mr. Norrell, gets even worse treatment from the transformative 'magic makers' in hair and make-up. Here is a guy with the visceral, laddish magnetism of a Bob Hoskins, and they paste cake after cake of powder on him until his Mr. Norrell resembles nothing so much as a mildly drawn stone gargoyle.Same thing with Paul Kaye as "Vinculus," the seer cum street magician. The creators made his facial appearance so simultaneously bland and over-the-top off-putting without any tie-in to the story, any rationale, that the urge to rise and refresh the popcorn when he commands the camera is irresistible. As I may have mentioned, this series is quite good and high-quality. But what it could have been had someone of mildly entertaining sensibility dressed all the actors, or swiped away some of the dour, well it could have been rather better for the turning.