mtuley000
The 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.
ozthegreatat42330
I enjoyed this one because it goes into an area almost never touched on, what happens after Arthur and the fall of Camelot. While the humor of Merlin (especially Martin Short) was not in as great a supply, it still had the story to tell. It did seem to me that the leader of the raiders was trying to emulate Arnold Schwartzenegger in his Conan days, and taken with Merlin, it was not the best casting for Miranda Richardson to play the Lady of the lake, since she was queen Mab before. I would have liked for Sam Neill to have had more screen time, but there was an excellent story here, and you were never really sure of the outcome until the very end. It is not quite as good as "Merlin" but still, all in all, very watchable. If you really want a good Arthur miniseries then have someone film the four books of Mary Stewart's Arthur and Merlin saga.
willow_barby
After 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.
Xander Seavy (RiffRaffMcKinley)
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.
AD
