‘Cursed’ is Struck with a Bland Curse
Cursed is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel, and is a retelling of the Arthurian legend with a twist. Instead of King Arthur gaining Excalibur, a teenage sorceress named Nimue (Katherine Langford) does. Her people — the Fey — are being hunted down, and so Nimue will do whatever it takes to save them.
I would describe this Netflix show as the edgy little cousin of The Witcher. Both shows have the same mature rating, but Cursed is definitely geared towards teens despite its crazy amount of violence. It’s strange really, the show attempts to be mature, but the dialogue comes off as soapy, and the action scenes are laughable.
At one point, Nimue is surrounded by a bunch of crazy cultists, but only one of them attacks her. The other guys are just standing around, carrying weapons that might as well be twigs because they’re completely useless.
Actually, there’s a lot of moments where characters are standing around and not doing anything until it’s their queue. There’s bad directing, bad dialogue, and pretty bad characters.
She’s not the worst…but Nimue’s far from an intriguing protagonist. She has these mystical powers but barely uses them. One prime example is when her village is attacked, she doesn’t use any of her powers at all. Instead, she runs around like a headless chicken, it’s frustrating to watch.
Guess what she uses magic for instead? She uses it to win a game of dice. I repeat, she uses magic to win a dice game, but doesn’t do it to help her people.
Another thing that bothers me is that I don’t understand what the Fey exactly are. Some of them have horns, some of them have wings, but Nimue is a Fey but she doesn’t have either. What she does have is mystical powers, but the Fey in her village fear her for it. None of the other Fey have powers, so what makes the Fey that look exactly like humans separate from humans?
When I later learned that some characters were Fey, I was confused because I swore they were regular humans. So again, what’s the difference? Maybe I simply missed it, but either way, I feel like the world building’s clunky.
Getting back to the characters…since this is based off of Arthurian legend, we see some familiar faces like Arthur (Devon Terrell) and Merlin (Gustaf Skarsgård). Arthur isn’t king yet, he’s a young mercenary who later falls for Nimue.
Arthur is played by a Black actor, and that might bother audiences since Arthur was — according to legend — a White British ruler. It didn’t bother me though since, y’know, it’s a fantasy show with a magical lead who can summon roots that strangle people, I think we can survive.
With that said, Arthur is okay-ish. He’s one of the few decent fighters, but doesn’t have enough action scenes. The romance between Arthur and Nimue is fairly bland. Frankly, I don’t think we needed a romance, it would’ve been fine if they were friends, but since this is aimed towards teens there has to be a romance between the two leads.
Then there’s Merlin. When he first appears, he reminds me of Jack Sparrow. He’s drunk, acts odd, and even has the same mannerism that makes me believe that I’m watching the medieval version of Pirates of the Caribbean. Merlin doesn’t have any powers, he lost them for some reason, so he’s just this guy and it’s essentially a bummer.
Overall, Cursed is a show that would likely entertain the teenage demographic more so than an older audience. It’s filled with cliches that we’ve seen a bunch of times, such as the main character being the chosen one, and a magical item that everyone wants to get. The characters are uninspiring, the plot is generic, and the fact that it’s a retelling of Arthurian legend doesn’t save it.
