Okay, first off, I nearly turned it off when the prologue began and I realized it truly was not a sequel to the beloved made-for-TV movie. The production value is low and the climax is rushed. It is missing the true tragedy and lore of the original Arthurian tales, yet at the same time holds onto the feeling of virtue and the loss of it that ended Camelot in the original legends. You can tell Richardson and Neil aren't as into the roles this time around (hey, a paycheck is a paycheck). There are some good one liners, good magic tricks, and one decent sword fight. John Reardon also stands out as being able to pull off his part with the same emotion as can be seen in the previous Merlin film. I would not call this movie a waste of time, I would call it mindless entertainment for the cheesy fantasy lover. Probably something most would prefer to catch on TV instead of spending money on.
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innocuous9 August 2012While the original mini-series was more charming and quirky than an actual Arthurian epic, "Merlin's Apprentice" doesn't even rise to that level. Don't misunderstand me...I have a genuine fondness for "Merlin" and own the DVD, watching it at least once a year. But "Merlin" had a tone and a theme that make it a pleasure to watch.
"Merlin's Apprentice" has competent cinematography, good lighting, decent editing, competent sound, and a lot of other qualities that are too often overlooked in recent films.
The script and direction, however, leave a lot to be desired. The story itself really does seem to have come from an after-school special. There's a heavy-handed politically-correct attitude that is definitely intended to teach kids some lessons about life as it should be. (The character of Brian is an egregious example of this, and it is an example of outright pandering to the PC crowd.) One thing that is sadly lacking is any sense of grandeur. The magic barely rises to the level of parlor tricks, making objects fly around the room or stopping an arrow in flight.
The direction of Wu leaves a lot to be desired as well. The actors are capable of much more, but Wu fails to bring it out for the camera.
Overall, though, it's worth watching, especially if you enjoyed the original. -
claudio_carvalho1 February 2008After sleeping for fifty years, the enchanter Merlin (Sam Neil) awakes weak and returns to the decadent Camelot, where he finds that the Holy Grail has vanished. With the kingdom under siege by the savage Rauskaug (Alexander Kalugin) that is helped by the evil sorceress Lady of the Lake (Miranda Richardson), Merlin seeks help with the thief and aspirant sorcerer Jack (John Reardon) to find the protection of the Holy Grail. However, he realizes that corruption has doomed Camelot.
I love movies about King Arthur, Merlin, the Holy Grail and the Knights of the Round Table. I tried to like "Merlin's Apprentice", but unfortunately it is long, boring, confused and corny. The screenplay shows a messy and silly story with many characters, but most of them are not well developed. Due to the restrained budget, the battle scenes are very weak and the scenes supposed to be funny are not. I loved the beauty of the actress Meghan Ory that I have seen for the first time, but her character Brianna should have been better developed and resolved. I did not like the performances of Christopher Jacot, Sam Neil, Miranda Richardson and Duncan Fraser. My vote is four.
Title (Brazil): "O Aprendiz de Merlin" ("Merlin's Apprentice") -
Merlin has always been one of my favorite characters in all the wide world. I loved the original Sam Neill miniseries. Was I wrong, then, to expect this would be any good? Not at all. The film is a miserable disappointment, and deserves to vanish rapidly into the realm of forgetfulness where Queen Mab (Miranda Richardson in the original) now resides. The new characters are vapid and criminally underdeveloped... especially Brianna. Even Sam Neill seems to have dropped his acting skills at the door. While this story could have gone in any one of a thousand directions that would have been better, it had to be stupidly butchered. Never before have I been so embarrassed to watch anything, and, sadly, this has been captured on film and will now last forever.
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ngjcdad26 September 2008After being tremendously impressed with 1998's "Merlin," I was excited to see that a sequel had been made. However, aside from Sam Neill as Merlin (and brief appearances by Miranda Richardson as the Lady of the Lake), there is no comparison to its much superior predecessor! The original had amazing special effects, a great cast, and wonderful performances. This has a handful of unknown and unimpressive actors walking around. (Picture a low-rent "Lord of the Rings"!) No surprises and nothing to impress. I only rate it as high as a "3" because I am such a fan of Arthurian legend, but even Arthurian fans shouldn't waste any time or money here!
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1kirk14 April 2006'Merlin's apprentice' is a sequel to the slightly better 'Merlin'. In this latest installment, the writer, Wu, decided to ignore most of the themes (and actual plot) of the previous film and add his own unique charm. This takes the form of killing off Sam Neil, to make way for the 'young blood' acting, which is so unconvincing and stilted that the actors seem actually depressed. If you want to see a bunch of Americans, looking young and angry about Camelot (the big computerised castle), running around waving swords in dramatic moments whenever possible, 'hilarious slapstick comedy' with the bungling hero who grows spiritually at the end whilst winning over the brusque female character who is cleverly disguised as boy - oh how we cheer him on, then see Merlin's apprentice. The main villain is Conan with more clothes on, who gets killed in a final climatic battle where everyone dies, but not really as the grail (which glows fluorescent green) makes them all alive again - yay. The meaningless ending which adds a talking pig, to bring back the 'lightheartedness' of the first bit, is about as effective as the script in which clichés, clichés galore, litter the dialogue. My favourites: 'fulfill your destiny', 'pure of heart', 'fate has decided', 'please spare us', and various noises like 'Nooo', the 'I'm-evil-roar'.
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mtuley00025 January 2009The main sin of this production, as I see it is on the part of the Halmi's (Jr and Sr.) By casting Sam Neil and Miranda Richardson as Merlin and Lady of the Lake, they trick all the fans of the first production of Merlin into believing this film to be a sequel. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is obvious after the first scene dealing with the Lady of the Lake and the Fens People. The Lady is a villain now on the same page as Queen Mab and the classic Morgan Le Fey. At first I thought the Fens People were Saxons, but this turned out not to be the case. They don't even exist in the first production. The Camelot of Merlin's Apprentice is a much darker version than in the first. The heroes are much less heroic and the villains much less evil. All have done evil and All have been wronged in certain ways. There is no black and white...only various shades of gray. Those looking for a classic Arthurian tale will be disappointed. In fact, they will probably be offended by all the modern themes (Environmentalism, Class Warfare/Exploitation... etc.) creeping into this production.
Those Europeans who are thinking that these actors are Americans are fooling themselves. They were all Canadians (oops with one Australian and one Brit)...not an American among them...I know you just can't tell the difference between one North American from another...can you? All in all, I think it was a good production given the much tinier budget than the first. Most of it was probably invested in Sam Neil's and Miranda Richardson's salaries. Stargate fans (SG-1 and Atlantis) and Andromeda fans will probably enjoy this production and recognize many of the alumni from both series. All in all, I enjoyed this Canadian production. -
skip_76418 January 2008I had been excited for some time about this sequel, and was even more ecstatic when it came out in my local video store. However, after watching this movie the only thing I felt was relief that I hired the movie rather than buying it straight at the store.
I really, really am thoroughly irritated by this sequel. OK, I was well aware of the fact that it wasn't so much of a sequel, as an 'alternate' retelling, and I was fine with it. But by the end of the movie I was ready to pull out my hair. This sequel is a total insult to the first movie.
The only decent acting I saw in this movie came from Sam Neil, Miranda Richardson and maybe a few others. I really think Sam Neil and Miranda Richardson tried their best, but both look very out of place, and their talents and time were really wasted in this. As for the other actors... all I could do was laugh, and not in a good way. Most of the acting was really cheesy, and throughout the movie all I could think of was how funny their accents sounded.
As for the plot, I can probably only rate it one iota above the acting. I could hardly see anything good about the story, and most of it was pretty bad, from the not so surprising plot 'twists' to the corny romance. There was only one thing I found half way decent about this movie and that was the battle towards the end, but even that was ruined by the actual ending.
The lack of special effects don't really bother me, I've seen plenty of movies that are absolutely riveting without them, although the movie may have been slightly more tolerable if it had had more.
erk... I'm going to stop now, because I seem to have annoyed myself again. So, overall, If you are someone loved the first movie, like me, spare yourself and don't watch this. I would not recommend this to anyone. -
lesandarah30 April 2006Honestly, I was so disappointed in this, I nearly screamed. I am a huge fan of HE's 'Merlin,' and when I found how they completely butchered the characters and story lines, I wanted to tear my hair out.
Take the Lady of the Lake for example. In 'Merlin,' she was a graceful, blonde goddess who watched over her lake and the waters of Britain. No more. Now they've stuck her with a strange voice and black hair. Do they think she is Mab (from 'Merlin')? She is obviously not. She and Mab had the entire Ying/Yang effect, and now it's like she's been pulled over to the Dark Side. May the force be with you, Lady, and give you back your old hairstyle.
And the Lady being Jack's mother? It was a pointless, idiotic thing to do, especially since Merlin is her father. It was just a plot device that must somehow been meant to trigger a serious plot point... But it didn't. It was stupid and unnecessary. Why couldn't Jack have been Merlin's son with Nimue, huh? And I thought Merlin specifically stated at the end of 'Merlin,' after making Nimue and himself young again, that it was the end of magic, and that there was NO MORE. In this, we find both Jack and him doing magic in CAMELOT, which is a Christian community, and thinks of magic as BLASPHEMY.
Ugh. This wasn't worth watching. I demand my twenty dollars back. -
blonde_mobile_nz21 April 2006I didn't actually think this movie would be that good, but I'm a sucker for anything Arthurian, so I put watched it. It didn't start so well, but I find it hard to ever stop watching a movie halfway through, and it turned around. It wasn't totally clichéd where you know from the beginning everyone is going to live happily ever after; at times it was even slightly morbid.
And it wasn't your average Camelot film; it was what happened after the fall of Arthur and the round table, and trying to find out why it did happen.
All in all it's a good film and if you like all things Camelot, like myself, watch it. -
Chairface-Chippendale8 March 2006Just finished watching it.. The movie is pretty weak. The original is far better. Sam Neil is barely in this and only in flashbacks. The unknown cast is passable, but nothing in this movie seems to come into focus. Miranda Richardson is really starting to show her age. She's playing the Lady of the Lake character and seems as if she is sleepwalking thru the part. All the characters are very subdued, no passion or emotion is here.. I was expecting this film to contain a lot of magic, however quickly realized there would be none. The film defiantly is lacking the "magical" feel of the first one. Magic takes the back seat to a boring plot. And I think that is really where the movie fails. Now this movie is only 1hr 32mins, so there is far less time to develop anything compared to the 3+ hour running time of the first film. However without Sam Neils endearing performance and and such a throw out plot, this movie is a poor sequel. I would recommend you skip it, or fast forward to the Sam Neil parts.
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Pellam17 March 2020Sam Neill sleepwalks through this ultimate collection of uninteresting clichés.
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treasuretrove_vip16 September 2006Bad is the keyword for this film, and it can be applied to almost every facet of it. Bad storyline, bad dialog, bad acting, bad adherence to the Arthur legend and worst of all bad follow-on to the original. In fact there are so many contradictions to the first Merlin that this cannot be considered to be a sequel.
Sam Neil (whom I like very much) just mailed this one in. I suspect he demanded his own death scene halfway through as a desperate way to get out of the film.
The writers should have their paychecks seized and donated to a worthwhile charity. -
What a waste of such a good cast. My media students could have directed it better. It is like lord of the rings without the lord or the rings. The script is flaccid and slow. The acting feels like they are completing a contractual obligation. The story line is of course stolen from star wars (she is your Mother Luke) And just who is fighting who? There must be a dozen different accents from English, to Canadian,Scottish, Nordic? The special effects are not up to the 21st century. This could have been filmed just as cleverly at the time of Bewitched(TV 1964). Actually I think I was more impressed by the special effects in that. The shaky camera work is annoying. I presume it was edited for TV. I would hate to watch it on a large screen. The choppy editing made me feel ill most of the time. And what a great idea putting Miranda's voice through vocoder. It does not work at all. I think someone should re-dub this as a comedy.
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Dragonflye18 March 2006I was in Best Buy the other day and happened to see "Merlin's Apprentice" in the new arrivals section. I was excited to see that a sequel was done with Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson reprising their roles. I bought the DVD and hurried home to watch it, only to be truly disappointed. All the "magic" of the first one is missing in this unworthy "sequel". The budget on this one was obviously far less than the first and it shows.
Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson seem to sleepwalk through the movie, leaving me to be believe they must have been under some kind of contractual obligation to do this film. If you watch the "making of" video in the Bonus Feature section of the DVD, Sam makes every effort to warn people off, if you read between the lines. Miranda only plays the Lady of the Lake in this film, but she looks more like Queen Mab, a confusing departure from the original. Her interview is equally apologetic in tone.
If I do my very best to forget the first film, I can see that this one has some value. John Reardon's performance as Jack was somewhat endearing; although, I believe it was his own charisma and not the lines he was given. Jennifer Calvert as Mistress Deborah, has a natural way of making you realize she is a "villain" long before the story reveals it. Although her role in "Earthsea" was a much better display of her talents. The Canadian wilderness scenery is quite breathtaking, but hardly believable as England.
At any rate, I gave this movie 4 stars. I'm not advising people to avoid it (misery loves company, after all), but be warned that this is not a sequel! -
winner553 October 2007This three hour film is presented in two distinct parts - and I mean very distinct.
The first part is actually rather charming in a dumb TV fantasy sort of way; Sam Niell is very winning as Merlin, and the story has some neat twists and turns, some predictable, but one or two unexpected; certainly we are left hanging over what might possibly have destroyed Camelot and erased its connection with the Holy Grail.
But the second part - my God!, this is bad! Slow, completely predictable, a mind-numbingly ridiculous happy-ending, wretchedly hammy acting, a script that no longer remembers it's set in the Middle Ages, fight-scenes that are meaningless even when not confusingly disjointed - no one could imagine a worse second-half of any movie or TV series.
So how the heck did it get imagined? My guess is, they started with half a script, got paid up front for the second half and decided, 'screw it, we got the money, let's take a vacation'. Either that or they just went suddenly psycho half-way through production.
Don't share that fate (or mine, who wastefully kept watching, expecting - hoping - that something interesting might happen). Avoid this tripe at all costs. -
loonarpoop27 March 2006First of all, to the person who said they wasted an "hour and a half" watching this movie...obviously they didn't see the second part. yes, this is a two-parter. I am an avid Merlin fan. I have read many books and watched many movies and television shows about merlin...you could say that i am a bit obsessed. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, from beginning to end. I do realize, however, that it does not follow traditional "merlin legend" ...but then again, there isn't much true fact that we know about merlin, so how can we honestly make a factual movie...the whole point is that it is a fantasy movie, it is some one else's interpretation of the legendary enchanter we all know and love. respect this person's interpretation because it means a lot to that individual, and to many fans out there. i give much applaud to Wu and all the other people responsible for this film (not forgetting Sam Neil...as merlin, i couldn't have picked a better person myself to portray merlin) and i think this is a great movie...even if it isn't a multi million dollar film...its a mini series for Christ's sake, use some imagination and fill in the gaps that the filmmakers couldn't help but leave.
thanks a lot for your time Danyelle -
willow_barby3 January 2007After the first Merlin mini-series (which got showered with nominations and what not) I thought that Merlin II was going to be great as well.
I was wrong.
Not only are we left with a lot of questions, things could also have been explained more (the Forest scene with Brianna, Jack, Graham and Yvonne for example and the Lady of the Lake... she puzzled me, compared to the first Merlin mini-series), and some should have been completely left out (the kissing scene between Graham and Yvonne and Jack and Brianna... it was... odd and it really didn't fit in the time period.) The special effects were so/so.
The acting was terrible, even by veteran actor Sam Neill, who didn't seem to have fun with this movie, like he had with the first Merlin one.
And even though John Reardon (Jack) is a pretty boy, he had some strong points in this movie, but he was a total let down otherwise. -
Let me start by saying I really enjoyed the first installment. Sam Neill is one of my favourite actors and he's perfectly cast as Merlin. They took the great decision to follow him through his life, so his motivations, actions and weaknesses were clear. There was a strong thread of conflict regarding the old ways vs Christianity to pull the whole story together.
The sequel is everything the first wasn't. The storyline ranges from fragmented to overly predictable to non-sensical. The acting is quite bad in places, even Sam Neill seems tired of it all at times (and not due to his character being so.)
Last chance to avoid spoilers (if you really want to watch this thing which I suggest against, but it's your choice!)
Merlin is overly angry and harsh in places, and seems to have no idea what he's doing in others. At one point he seems to throw a temper tantrum and lock himself in his room waiting for the enemy to come and kill them all? (Until he's talked out of it.) Of course there's the reformed bumbling, theif apprentice who turns out to have a true heart of gold. The gender swap girl knight, who is so obviously female that no one except Merlin seems to notice (???) You've got the Sir Lancelot stand in (right down to the "forbidden romance"). And the object of that forbidden romance that everyone (including Merlin) seems to be obsessing over her "purity" way too much. The very obvious traitors are also there. No real twists, just plain "these guys are baddies" from the get go.
Moving on... Does it get better? Oh no! No it gets worse. You see everything was swell until Merlin decides to take a nap in the hillside. The Lady of the Lake then enchants him to sleep for 50 years, during which time she non-consensually uh-hem has relations with him to create a child she wanted to use. Yes that's right. The previously sweet, helpful Lady of the Lake from the first movie, magically drugs Merlin so she can have her way with him. How completely messed up this is, barely seems to even be touched on.
Speaking of. Remember the Lady of the Lake in the first movie? How she was the opposite of Mab in many ways? Ethereal, willing to slide into nothingness without a fight as she believed it was their time? Yeah, well in this one she basically is Mab mark II. In fact I thought she was Mab until they said she was the Lady of the Lake. She looks like her, acts like her, sounds like her and is out for revenge to kill every single last person in Camelot because they polluted her lake I guess.
Um ok... Bit of a personality swap, and appearence swap, and everything swap really. Sometimes I'm pretty sure you can tell when a writer gets hired to do a sequel and kind of flips through the first scene of the movie. Decides it's too much work to watch the rest and so reads it's wikipedia page and decides "I've got this, how hard could it be?"
Anyway, there are lots of largely boring battles. Largely boring dialogue. People doing stupid things to move the plot along. The second half is definitely worse than the first, so if you are on the fence about whether to watch part two because "surely it'd have to get better?" Nope it doesn't.
The big bad of the movie that even Merlin couldn't go up against directly, apparently only needed a hand wave from his apprentice to destroy them. Quite anti-climatic, but I guess they needed to wrap the movie up and didn't know what else to do? Oh yeah, and there's a happy ever after for pretty much everyone including those who died in the last 10 minutes of the movie.
My advice is to avoid this movie. I really couldn't find much redeeming to it. Watch the first and pretend this one wasn't made if you can. -
apetreiadriana14 November 2006it was awful, without a good script, the acting was awful, and i don't care about the budget of the movie. if the film was expected to be a sequel for hallmark's production i am vary disappointed to say that they got it all wrong! it was just awful!when i first found out about the movie i was anxious to see it! i thought to myself that it must be a good movie, and definitely a sequel, because of Sam Neil performance, but just from the beginning i understood that i was very wrong. pity for the music which was pretty good, but not breathtaking.i also didn't like the cameras position and some stupid jokes placed badly in some scenes. sorry, but a very very bad movie!
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unicorn_dreamer10 March 2006I really liked the original Merlin - it had good characters, script, effects, etc.
Now, several years on, general technology and quality of TV shows have improved....so why do they all seem so lacking in this?
Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson top the cast list as they are the only well known actors, and the only links to the original, yet they both spend so little time on the screen that they may as well not have been in it.
The story regarding Merlin seems to make little, or no, sense when compared to the time-line of the original movie - unless I missed something
And what is with the pig??? -
burakytu15 March 2006This film is the worst Merlin film I have ever seen. If you have one and half hour to waste; watch it. It is not even a child movie. It is rubbish. No acting, no effect, nothing...
First of all camera technique is weak. Story is bad too. It is very predictable. There is no surprises.Film is short but I appreciate them to make this movie short. Because no one can watch it any longer. I bet if you watch this movie, you'll want your money back.
Only truth for film is its genre. Yes it is Fantasy film. Director's fantasy. I think David Wu is testing spectator's limits. My last word for this movie is "Boring". -
renata6029 December 2006Very confusing and absolutely pointless movie. Don't spend your time on this crap. I don't understand why good actors like Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson agreed to take part in this stuff. After more than 1 hour we still weren't able to figure what it was about. Most often used sentence was "Camelot is dead". (I always thought Camelot was a castle.... :-S ) It felt like reading book from the middle. Camera was horrible, quite often you could see someone's face all over the TV screen. I really dislike this way of filming. I was disappointed mainly because someone tried to make it looking like continuation of original great movie named Merlin, where Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson also played. But visibly it wasn't the same director as in the first movie. It's awful movie, I gave it 1 point. Yuck :(
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purkntri18 April 2006I loved the original, and found this sequel quite by accident. Nothing could compare to the first, but this one stands well on its own. I found it hard to follow at first, but if you stick with it, it makes sense. Sam and Miranda are refreshing in their roles which have received a bit of an overhaul. Garwin Sanford (Narim-Stargate SG-1,Simon-Stargate Atlantis) and John Reardon do a really good job in their roles. The pig was funny. It reminds me of the horse in the first movie. Jack's Arcimedes? Who knows. True this one does not match the time line of the first one completely, but if you are familiar with the legend of Merlin, and you have a lot of fantasy creativity you can accept the changes with some stride. Hollywood does not do things in proper order with all the pieces fitting, I learned that long ago and have stopped expecting it. Take this movie for what it is, a unique romp in the world of an exceptional wizard, wisely played by Sam Neill.
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gillywoo26 October 2008After thoroughly enjoying the original mini-series of "Merlin" with Sam Neil as Merlin, I hoped that this would be as good. Frankly -it's not. The acting is appalling with all manner of strange accents, John Readon's "Jack" is an extremely irritating character who can't seem to make his mind up whether he's Irish, Scottish, English or Canadian. Budget Arnie (Rauskaug) was amusing at first but quickly wore thin. Sam Neil seems to have forgotten how to act as well in this film, which is a crying shame as his Merlin was near perfect. Miranda Richardson has become nothing but a breathy mess. THe plot I lasted 40 mins and I am sad that I spent good money on this drivel.
Not recommended at all.