Entertainment

Hot in ‘Camelot’

If you’re looking for a pointy hat, flowing robes with stars, a smoking cauldron and a big, white beard, I suggest you make a right at Disney and keep going.

Starz’s new CGI-infused “Camelot” series is not your father’s “Camelot” and certainly not the Merlin, Arthur or Guinevere of your own childhood either — or anyone’s.

In fact, Starz, the channel of the flying blood, boobs and bare bottoms of “Spartacus” fame, is even promoting this new series as “the story of Camelot that has never been told before.”

And that’s probably with good reason. Unless you are a teenage boy, a man who loved playing “Dungeons and Dragons” as a kid, or someone who spends weekends doing Medieval reenactments in parking lots, you might not be all that enthralled with this latest take on the sword-in-the-stone story.

The series begins with nasty Morgan (Eva Green), who really has no choice but to be evil, seeing how her father doesn’t love her and never did. So, she kills him.

The fact that he’s the king, means, of course, that she will fight for the throne. Unbeknownst to her, however, the real heir and future King — Arthur (Jamie Campbell Bower of “Twilight”) — is toiling away as a peasant teen who doesn’t have any clue that he’s the rightful heir.

That’s where Merlin the buff (Joseph Fiennes) comes in. Eschewing the pointy hat, flowing beard and white hair for a Spartan, shaved-head and warrior look, Merlin is more muscle than magic when he shows up at said peasant farm to reclaim Arthur.

Anyway, Arthur’s brother, Kay (Peter Mooney), who isn’t really his brother because he was born to Arthur’s adopted peasant farmer parents, goes with him to be his right-hand man.

Much sword fighting and bare breasting later, Arthur meets Guinevere (Tamsin Egerton) when she comes walking out of the ocean like a medieval Bo Derek in “Ten.” Somehow, only her hair is wet and that’s good because she’s packing. A sword. Don’t ask.

It’s not until episode two that Arthur gets to pull the sword from the stone. Of course, in this version, he has to rappel up the side of a waterfall on a pulley and retrieve the sword from inside the rushing falls.

Fiennes is fine as the pumped Merlin. James Purefoy as King Lot, lover of Morgan, is the strongest actor in the cast and steals every scene. (No wonder he’s not around for long.) Green is gorgeous as Lot’s lover who, when angry — I swear — calls him the c-word. (Who knew that word was even around in the middle ages? See the things TV can teach you?)

Unfortunately, lightweight Bower (more Dude Arthur than King Arthur) and an even lighter-weight Egerton can’t carry a series, let alone a kingdom.

Nonetheless, it’s still lots of lush, plush, silly good fun.