Merlin: The Return (2000)

MERLIN: THE RETURN is an ill-advised B-movie reworking of the Arthurian story, studded with recognisable British actors but made on a tiny budget that renders the whole thing complete nonsense. I mean, I know this was a kid's movie and all, but to make no effort whatsoever in terms of scripting and staging leads to great embarrassment all round. Nobody here gives a good performance aside from the reliably kooky Rik Mayall, and even he's off-form. The rest of the cast are wooden, particularly the awful Craig Sheffer as the villain of the piece. Patrick Bergin shows up as a tired Arthur while Adrian Paul appears briefly as Lancelot, while Tia Carrera is a random scientist added to the mix. The film's awful special effects and general lack of coherence make it worse even than the kid's films churned out by Charles Band's Full Moon Pictures enterprises from Romania, and that's saying something.

This movie is a parody, right ??? There is no other way to describe it. It's either a parody or a fiasco. Merlin should be regal like Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies, not the village idiot. King Arthur is a wimp and please don't start me on Mordred.Adrian Paul as Lancelot (one of the two main reasons I bothered to watch this movie) looks like someone who doesn't know what the hell he is doing there, but decided that "if I'm stuck here at least lets have some fun". He is having fun and in the few scenes he is in, Mr. Paul can hardly keep straight face. This movie is a must miss movie, especially if you are a "King Arthur and the round table" tales buff.

Remember the 1980's, where bad fantasy films sprouted out of the woodwork? Well, if you want to re-live that 1980's bad fantasy film experience again without watching such "gems" as "Hawk, the Slayer", "Ator" or "Krull", just look for this one collecting dust at your local video store. Hmm... Adrian Paul AND Tia Carrere, oh you KNOW this is going to be good. I can't think of a film with Tia Carrere in it that didn't stink. Tia really needs someone with either some sense or some taste to look at the scripts she is given and tell her which ones are rubbish, because she obviously has no idea which scripts are terrible. Then again, maybe they drove a dump truck full of money to her house. Adrian Paul, better known for latching onto one of the most overrated franchises of all time ("Highlander" is so lame, and yet it spawned so much... ugh), gives a very wooden performance at best. All this film needed to hit the "Bad Movie Actor Trifecta" was Christopher Lambert; at least we have Craig Sheffler doing his best Christopher Lambert impersonation as Mordred. Even Rik Mayall, the reason why I watched this (I loved his work in "The Young Ones" and "The Black Adder"), seemed to give a uninspired performance.It seems the theme behind the production here was "slapdash", and considering when it came out, this theory may be right. Despite the date given here at IMDB, the Copyright date on the movie is 2000, and both "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" were in production, so it seems like this movie was done as a way to cash in on the upcoming fantasy boom early, like "Dungeons & Dragons" also did in 2000. The sets were laughable at best, especially the Stonehenge set (placed in a valley here... um, did you look at Stonehenge before erecting the set). The sword fight scenes, choreographed by Adrian Paul, looks worse than a group of children playing around. I didn't realize that working on a bad TV show for a few years can make one a fight choreographer.However, there is one interesting part in this film, that being the forces on the Earth that create and control magic. That was interesting, and I could see some fantasy role playing gamers implementing this in their games. After all, only hard core fantasy film buffs (like myself) and fantasy gamers will suffer through this tripe.If you need your fantasy film fix and don't want to watch "Lord of the Rings" or "Harry Potter", watch "Conan, the Barbarian", "The Thirteenth Warrior", "The Mists of Avalon" or "Dragonslayer" instead. I would even watch "Conan, the Destroyer" before watching this again. A major setback for the fantasy film genre.-Angry Dad "Look, it's internet buffoon, Angry Dad!"- Sideshow Mel

Wow. I don't think I have ever been so torn as I have been watching "Merlin The Return". Rik Mayall, Adrian Paul, and so many others put in absolutely wonderful performances.However, there were 2 MAJOR points that made this utterly disasterous.1) The American Kid. There are some scenes that's he's good in. Most, he is just... BAD to be kind.2) The "Modern Day" characters about town. The main ones they focused on (including the kids) seemed too accepting of Merlin and his appearing. Someone could of said "he appeared out of nowhere", and someone else laugh it off. If perhaps it was established better that Merlin was known as "the town nutter" (a little extra dialog could of killed that one) and only one person believed he was really Merlin (say the girl or her mother), then there could be a better believability. Also, everyone seemed to be a bit nonchalant when Merlin uses his magic and then Mordred comes through the gateway the first time.Yet through the holes, lies a pretty darn good story for the most part, and some solid acting and swordplay. Really a fun movie.I gave it 5 out of 10, because of the distractions, but it's still a very fun movie, though better for kids than adults (and that could of easily been fixed).