Merlin: The Return

Production: A Peakviewing Releasing release of a Peakviewing Transatlantic production. (International sales: Peakviewing, Gloucestershire, U.K.) Produced by Elizabeth Matthews, Paul Matthews. Executive in charge of production, Peter H. Matthews. Directed, written by Paul Matthews.
Crew: Camera (color), Vincent G. Cox; editor, Peter Davies; music, Mark Thomas; production designer, Edward Alan Thomas; art director, Arwel Evans; costume designer, Pierre Vienings. Reviewed at Warner Village West End 8, London, Dec. 22, 2000. Running time: 90 MIN.
With: With: Rik Mayall, Patrick Bergin, Craig Sheffer, Tia Carrere, Adrian Paul, Julie Hartley, Byron Taylor.

A low-rent attempt to inject Arthurian sword-and-sorcery into a contempo setting, "Merlin: The Return" rattles along with plot and performances all over the place and an overall look that's somewhere between a British "Les Visiteurs" and a '60s Mario Bava fantasy. Inept direction positions this for undiscriminating sprigs on half-inch.

A low-rent attempt to inject Arthurian sword-and-sorcery into a contempo setting, “Merlin: The Return” rattles along with plot and performances all over the place and an overall look that’s somewhere between a British “Les Visiteurs” and a ’60s Mario Bava fantasy. Inept direction positions this for undiscriminating sprigs on half-inch.

Shot in South Africa (unconvincingly repping rural England) with a mixed Anglo/American cast, story has a wild-eyed, hippie-haired Merlin (Brit comic Rik Mayall) trying to stop a Yank scientist, Miss Maxwell (Tia Carrere), who’s fiddling with magnetic fields to bring the wicked Mordred (Craig Sheffer) into the present to wreak evil. Merlin’s powers are failing, and he needs all the help he can get from Arthur (Patrick Bergin), Guinevere (Julie Hartley) and the lovelorn Lancelot (Adrian Paul), plus a young teen from Idaho (Byron Taylor) who happens to be in the village.

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Some visual effects with skeletal ghosts are neat, but almost everything else is a chaotic mess, with Mayall mugging, Bergin bemused, Sheffer shrieking and Carrere just punching the clock. Color processing is mostly garish, and the plot overstocked with minor characters.

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