Saturday, February 7, 2015

Dar Does L.A.

Beastmaster II: Through The Portal of Time
1991



Oh my god this was so awful! I've literally played the ending four times and still haven't managed to sit through it...

This is one of those sequels that just completely drops characters from the previous film with nary an explanation or nod. Hell, it even had entirely new animals (though some inexplicably had the same names as the first round). It starts with a narrative about some crazy dude taking over after King Zed's death.Dar's half-brother, Tal, and Tal's bodyguard, Seth are totally MIA - as is Dar's cousin/lover, Kiri. But apparently, Dar had an older (presumably) half-brother, the mad Arklon (who is now in charge).

On a romp through the swamp, a bog witch tells Dar that he's not Zed's first born. Zed had another son that was taken from him earlier, and she knows this because she's actually Zed's sister...who is now an uglier version of Swamp Thing due to messing with dark magic. What have we learned from this? Never let Zed babysit your children - or breed with him, for that matter.

Here's the weird thing: Between the opening narrative and swamp family reunion, Dar is actually captured by Arklon's minions. They meet face to face and Arklon clearly knows he's The Beastmaster...which would lead one to believe that he also knows how he came to be in said predicament...yet he doesn't recognize him as his brother until Dar shows him the brand on his hand about some time after the swamp romp. But wait...there's more: Arklon ALSO has a brand. Sooooo...

I don't know why I expect these farces to follow any kind of logic. I guess because Marc Singer was looking a little too blond-Ted Nugent-y for my taste, this go 'round, I had no choice but to focus on the plot. Ah yes, the plot: some self-promoting sorceress discovers a "time portal" into LA and seeks to use it as a dowry-path to queendom. Arklon looks like demented beaver and throws tantrums that would shame Val Kilmer. He's also really into codpieces, shoulder-enhancements, and sports a Phantom of the Opera half-mask, but I guess a throne is a throne.

Anyway, the witch convinces Arklon that she can help him get a nuke from the portal and they can rule what's left of humanity together. Sort of. Along the way, some crazy daughter of a senator gets pulled through. She helps Dar - who has suddenly because a crazed simpleton loner barely capable of speech - save the world. I guess. I'm not watching the last 15 minutes again. I can't. The mere fact that they insisted on calling what was CLEARLY a dimensional portal, a "time" portal was just too insulting, to say nothing of the random coincidences that drove the plot.


1 comment:

  1. I forgot to mention that halfway through the movie, it's revealed that Arklon had psychic powers - which he uses on the military officer he just happens to randomly find at some dive bar. So...he has psychic powers and that corny Power Key...why does he actually need the sorceress? Also, it's kind of an assumption that Dar got his powers because he was born away from his mother into the womb of a cow. What? Was Arklon smuggled out in some S&S version of MTV's The Head? "Hi, I'm Hoargarth. Don't mind my head, there's just a stolen baby in it."

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