Merlin: O Retorno

A somewhat humorous twist on the tales and legends of King Arthur/Camelot. A late 20th century "mad scientist" of sorts resurrects Guinevere wearing dreadlocks, Merlin and some knights and they must stop Morgana and Mordred from returning.

There are some intentionally funny moments: like Merlin running down the road without pants, the knights being thrown from a diesel truck. Other parts of the film are meant to be taken seriously, I guess, but are funny - unintentionally funny. I would say this film is quite campy.

It's an awful film, but it does make a good comical afternoon matinée. It's a family film so I would recommend keeping that in mind if you decide to watch.

4/10

I hadn't ever heard of this movie until I ran across it on cable this evening, and seeing Rik Mayall's name in it, I figured I'd check it out, being a fan of "The Young Ones" from way back. Well obviously he's a young one no longer, but he does a enthusiastic turn as Merlin in this unfortunate mish-mash of I-don't-know-what.

Was this really Patrick Bergin, Tia Carrere, Craig Sheffer (oh what happened to the days of "A River Runs Through It"?)? Throw in a little Stonehenge mythology, Arthurian legend, special effects that look like they flew out of "Ghostbusters" and this could have been a LOT better movie. Bad things happen to good actors, and this movie is proof. Discombobulated plot, confusion abounds, and I kept hoping Elizabeth from "Drop Dead Fred" would pop up and say the magic words and make it all go back in the jack-in-the-box. Craig Sheffer is in no way, shape or form cut out to be this creepy time traveler, he's a great actor and what in the world made him do this movie is beyond me. Patrick Bergin doesn't really have that much enthusiasm either.

Mayall does seem to be the most inclined to try his best, so I'd give this a 5 out of 10.

Another film watched for the "How Did This Get Made" podcast, "Merlin: The Return" is not just the worst film I've watched for them, but one of the worst I've ever seen.

Having used a spell to trap all the characters of Arthurian legend in another dimension, Merlin (Rik Mayall) is disturbed to learn that Mordred (Craig Sheffer) is communicating with present day scientist Dr. Joan Maxwell (Tia Carrere) and that she is close to a scientific breakthrough that free them. To stop them he. . . . actually what does he do?

I'm genuinely not sure whether the film has a plot that you can follow. A bunch of stuff happens, sure, but motivations, powers and plot seems to alter minute by minute. There are some kids in present day South Africa (don't try and convince me that's the UK film, for it definitely isn't) and they're involved. One of them is threatened by Mordred that they have to kill Merlin, or he'll kill his mother - but like so many other plot points in the film ultimately it comes to nothing.

So, the story is dreadful, as are the visual effects (though this might be expected as it's a low budget film.) but the performances are ... also terrible. With an oddly muted Rik Mayall maintaining his dignity slightly, but the rest of the cast, who are all B-Movie regulars and semi recognisable faces like Adrian Paul are universally awful.

I could keep going but I'll end up repating myself. This is bad.

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.

Merlin: The Return I didn't find quite that bad, but it was not a good movie at all either. There are a few assets that made it more bearable. The music is decent, with some times where it's mystical and others where it's tongue-and-cheek. The late and very talented Rik Mayall is the best actor in Merlin: The Return and is also the best thing about it, while he plays it straight he does not take it too seriously, in fact he's actually very entertaining. Julie Hartley is a beguiling Guinevere and she and Mayall have enjoyable chemistry together that was not as present between her and Patrick Bergin. Tia Carrere has had a fair share of bad movies but she's nearly always been one of the redeeming merits, here she plays charming and bitchy quite well and also doesn't take it too seriously or go overboard despite having a type of role that easily could have gone either way. Leigh Greyvenstein is appealingly winsome and plucky, by far and away the best of the child actors. There are a few parts that were genuinely funny too, especially when Merlin tells Arthur how to contact the Lady of the Lake, the movie is photographed reasonably and some of the make-up was nice.

However, the rest of the cast don't work, either being over-the-top or wooden. The worst case was Byron Taylor who is awful, he plays his character in such a surly way that he comes across as a zombie completely devoid of any emotion. Patrick Bergin has his moments but while like Mayall he plays it straight unlike Mayall he does take it too seriously and acts like a wimp at times. Adrian Paul is wooden with some truly unintentionally hilarious line delivery. And Craig Sheffer is saddled with the most thankless character and chews the scenery to pieces so much(growls, barks and all) that you can't take him at face value and he doesn't ever come across as a threat. The characters are both annoying and underdeveloped with Merlin being a notable exception, and the dialogue is just terrible with no effort to make the characters interesting, create magic or mystery and it is laden with humour that is never really funny and is rather stupid instead. Apart from the photography Merlin: The Return is a cheap-looking film, the special effects look like a half-assed last-minute job, the costumes are fancy-dress quality, the lighting has a rather drab look and most of the sets apart from the odd nice one looked like they were made of polystyrene made and coloured in haste. The action sequences are disadvantaged by the poor production values but are hurt even more by the sloppy pacing, unimaginative choreography that has a slow-motion quality to it and basically just the lack of fun and excitement. The story has no wonder or magic whatsoever, it's often very dull and didn't seem to know whether to take a straight-faced approach or play it for laughs, it felt like it was trying to do both but failed. The mix of archaic and modern was slightly confusing and didn't mesh well together.

To conclude, mediocre, the worst assets actually being very bad but it has a few things that keep it from being worse. 4/10 and that's mainly for Mayall. Bethany Cox