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.

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

First of all some setbacks to the film:The kid who played Richie was absoloutely dreadful! That performance was probably one of the worst I have ever seen in a film. He looked totally unbelievable in the role and a blind chimp with his hands behind his back could have done a better job! The worst piece of acting in the film for him was when he walked through the door and saw tia carrere and that bad guy. The lines were something like "what is that"( he was probably standing in front of a mirror and saw his own acting). Adrian Paul was also disappointing in the role Lancelot. It was an OK performance but was a bit wooden and he didn't seem to show any good signs of acting( highlander 2 springs to mind). The script to the film was a bit weak and did not show off any of the actors talents as they should have doneSome better performancesEven though I cannot stand Patrick Bergin as a person, in fact i think he is very arrogant, he still did a good job with the film. It wasn't brilliant but it was above average.Tia Carrere, who I am a big fan of was very well cast in the bitchy role. As nice as Tia is off screen her best roles seem to be playing the baddie( an exeptional performance in true lies). Tia is a very funny actress and the comedy seemed to shine through naturally in this film.Rik Mayall was also very well cast and was hilarious in the role as merlinThe two performances were Tia, Rick and Patrick

but coming close to it.This film has possibly on of the worst, and slowest, sword fights in the history of cinema. It was that bad, it looked as though the editor had used footage of a dress rehearsal, instead of the real scene.Add to this appalling accents, dodgy over the top acting, and cheap sets that looked like early Dr Who/ sixties Star Trek.If you're an adult watch John Boormans "Excalibur". If you have kids watch the Sam Neil mini-series.But avoid this at all costs.