Excalibur

Director - John Boorman (Deliverance)
Starring - Nigel Terry (Doctor Who), Helen Mirren (RED), and Nicol Williamson (Spawn)
Release Date - 1981
Genre - Adventure/Fantasy
Tagline - "Forged by a God.  Foretold by a wizard.  Found by a king"
Format - DVD (Personal Collection)

Rating (out of 5):

     I had seen this movie sitting at Wal-Mart in the 5 dollar bin but never had any desire to pick it up.  The dvd artwork made it look like a cheap King Arthur film that would be a waste of time and money.  I resisted the urge to buy it because when I was little I loved everything King Arthur.  I had books, cartoons, and even a few comics about the character.  So it was safe to say that I was worried about this ruining one of my favorite tales.  One day I was checking out the movies at Big Lots and ran across this for $3 and figured it was time to finally buy it and if it sucked I could still add it to my collection.

     This begins with Merlin taking Excalibur from the lady in the lake.  He then gives it to Uther Pendragon to end the war between his people and Gorlois the Duke of Cornwall.  However, this is short due to Uther's infatuation with Gorlois' wife.  Uther has Merlin work his magic and make him resemble Gorlois.  While the real Gorlois is off to battle, Uther sneaks in and makes love to his wife.  Gorlois dies in battle that night and 9 months later gives birth to a baby boy.  Uther comes in right after the baby is born to see if it is his or Gorlois.  The baby is indeed Uther's and Merlin takes him away.  A small girl, Morgana Le Fay, witnesses Merlin taking her half brother away.  Uther's people turn their back on him for everything that has played out and attack him to acquire Excalibur.  Before he dies he pushes Excalibur into a stone.  Merlin then gives the baby to a man to raise.  The boy is named Arthur and raised to be a squire for his adoptive brother who is a knight.  The film then picks up when Arthur is in his adolescence and is accompanying his adoptive brother and father as they prepare to joust other knights for the right to pull the sword from the stone.  While chasing a young thief that has stolen his brothers sword, Arthur gives chase and they run by Excalibur.  Arthur stops and very easily pulls it from the stone.  Worried that the priest and knights will punish him, he forces Excalibur back in it's place.  The priest saw him remove it and asks him to do it again.  However, some knights and citizens overhear him and cut him off.  One knight tries to pull it from the stone and fails.  The priest makes Arthur do it again and he succeeds.  The knights, shocked, split among themselves with some favoring Arthur as new king and others vowing to wage war on Arthur and his followers.  King Leondegrance (Patrick Stewart) vows his allegiance to Arthur and the rebel knights attack his castle.  Arthur and his knights rush to the rescue where he is knighted by the leader of the rebel knights.  Arthur is also introduced to Leondegrance's daughter Guenevere who he falls in love for instantly.  Merlin sees the relationship as  trouble in the future.  The two marry and all of Camelot and Britain prospers under King Arthur's rule.  That is until Arthur defeats a young knight named Lancelot.  Arthur is defeated by the knight and harnesses the power of Excalibur to defeat the undefeated champion.  He also breaks Excalibur doing so.  Ashamed of what he had done he throws the pieces in the water.  Excalibur is then repaired and thrown from the water by the lady of the lake.  He vows never to use it for personal gain again.  Lancelot is now one of the knights of the roundtable.  He then, just like King Arthur, falls for Guenevere and the two have an affair.  Sir Gawain (Liam Neeson) is able to spot the signs of this and tries to inform King Arthur.  Arthur does not believe him and has Lancelot and Gawain joust.  Lancelot wins and Gawain takes back everything he said.  King Arthur then figures out for himself and one night when the two sneak off to make love he follows.  Arthur waits till they fall asleep and places Excalibur between them in the ground.  That night his half sister disguises herself as Guenevere and seduces Arthur.  Nine months later she bares their son, Mordred.  After Mordred is born Arthur is struck by lightning and is cursed.  His health starts deteriorating and Camelot begins to fall apart.  King Arthur then sends his knights out to find the holy grail to bring life back into his kingdom.  Along the way many of them fall prey to his son, Mordred.  Mordred has been training all his life to fight King Arthur to take control of Camelot.  Perceval, having solved the riddle that Arthur and the land are one, gets the grail and returns it to Arthur.  Arthur, and Camelot, are now back to health and he sets out to do what has to be done.  He finds Guenevere in a convent where she has been keeping Excalibur.  He kisses her and takes back his sword and sets out to face Mordred.  Before doing so, Arthur calls on Merlin.  Merlin tricks Morgana into citing a spell that releases her magic and ages rapidly.  This releases the breath of the dragon, or fog, onto the land.  Arthur uses this to his advantage to hide how small his numbers are.  However, Mordred has him out numbered and the battle is one sided until Lancelot arrives.  Lancelot turns the tides and the king's men get the upper hand.  Lancelot and a number of King Arthur's knights fall along with most of Mordred's army.  Arthur and Mordred finally face where Arthur comes out the victor but sustains a fatal wound.  As Arthur lays dying he orders a knight to return Excalibur to the lady of the lake.  When the knight returns Arthur is now on a boat with three ladies standing over him as he is wrapped in a death shroud.

     This movie surpassed every expectation I had for it.  I was totally in shock when I first watched this.  I will be completely honest with you.  After my first initial viewing I turned right around and watched it again.  I was expecting a low budget adaption of the Arthurian tale that would be filled with crappy acting and a story line that had nothing to do with the original tale.  I was completely wrong.  I do not know the budget but this film is absolutely beautiful.  The scenery and atmosphere in this movie play along with the story.  When Camelot and King Arthur are prospering their armor and swords glisten with white and green light.  However, once King Arthur and Camelot is cursed that glisten is removed and everything is coated in dust and dirt.  The acting is amazing.  It was great seeing some of today's greatest actors in a film like this from the 80's.  I was caught off guard by Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson appearing in this film.  It was also weird seeing Neeson get his ass kicked which is something not common of his films in the passed 20 years.  The story does follow what books I read as a child very well.  Out of all the films I have seen about King Arthur this one is definitely the best one.  There was a few things I did not like.  Some of the characters appeared in the film and was never heard from again.  It would have been nice to have some closure on the characters that appeared and created that tie with the viewer and why they did not appear in the remainder of the film.  Another problem I had with the film is during some scenes the camera work seems very amateur and shake a lot.  This is more so during the fight scenes.  The camera bounces so much I came close to getting a headache.  This is a movie that everyone should watch.  It is truly an amazing film.                                          


    

The Beastmaster Trilogy

Director - Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Bubba Ho-Tep)

Starring - Marc Singer (Eagle Eye), Tanya Roberts (That 70's Show), and Rip Torn (Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story)

Release Date - 1982

Genre - Adventure/Fantasy

Tagline - "Born with the courage of an eagle, the strength of a black tiger, and the power of a god"

Rating (out of 5):

 

     This was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid.  Every weekend when I didn't rent a Sega Genesis game I would always rent this, Conan The Destroyer, and Jason Goes to Hell.  Those movies was watched so many times when I was little I could quote them from beginning to end.  That changed with the coming of the PSone and DVDs.  When those came along I forgot all about my VHS collection and renting others from the local video store.  I was definitely not the only one because soon after all those shops went out of business.  Sometime last year I was at Wal-Mart, the root of all evil, and I ran across a 10 movie fantasy set and this one just happened to be in it so I grabbed it.

     This is your typical sword and the sorcery flick from the 80's.  The movie follows Dar, a man who was removed from his mother's womb and placed into that of an ox by a disfigured witch.  The witch then goes into the woods and removes the baby from the ox to mark him and then sacrifice him.  A poor villager just happens through the woods late at night with his trusty weapon and kills the witch before she can kill the infant.  The movie then fast forwards a few years and the peasant is training the young boy how to use a sword.  While in the woods practicing another villager is attacked by a bear and it is revealed that Dar is able to communicate with it telepathically.  Dar's foster father makes Dar promise not to tell anyone of what happened.  The film then jumps forward again to Dar, who is now an adult, working in the field.  His village is then attacked by the Junn Horde.  The Junn Horde, a group of savage warriors, is looking for Dar because it was foretold he will prevent their ruler, Maax (Torn), from ruling the people.  After his adoptive father and everyone in the village is murdered by the Junn Horde, Dar sets out on a journey to kill those responsible.  While on his journey he comes across a black tiger, a hawk, and two ferrets that he is able to communicate with, and more often that not, help him out of many sticky situations.  When nearing the city of which his father was king, Dar comes across a nude slave girl swimming in a pond.  She is then taken by the Junn Horde and moved into the city.  Dar then enters the city to see the girl with other slaves and Maax sacrificing a small child.  Deciding that the sacrifice was not enough, Maax then chooses another one to throw into the fiery pit.  However, Dar's hawk picks up the child and flies it to freedom.  The majority of the film is small fight scenes, horrible dialogue, and then Dar gets his revenge.

     After going so many years without watching this movie and finally getting to see it again I surprisingly still like it as much as I did when I was little.  However, I did notice a lot of things I did not when I was little.  Now I noticed that the lore in this flick is borrowed from the mythology in other cultures and civilizations.  The three witches are similar to the Graeae seen in the Greek mythology.  Also, the sacrifices of children on giant pyramids are similar to those performed by the pre-Columbian Mayans.  The movie itself is very cheesy but very entertaining.  It is very dark and could very easily have been filmed as a horror movie which the director is known for.  The fight scenes are the worst I have probably ever seen in my life but it does not take away from the movie.  Also, this movie had one of the scariest scenes I had ever witnessed as a child.  I would always fast forward the movie when it came to the scene with the giant bat creatures that bear hugged people and turned them to green soup and bone.  The acting is very well done, except for Tanya Roberts who should have just remained nude the whole movie and not spoke.  I highly recommend this cheesy fantasy flick to anyone who wants something different to watch.         

  

Director - Sylvio Tabet (Evil Speak)

Starring - Marc Singer (Beastmaster), Wings Hauser (Tales from the Hood), and Sarah Douglas (Strippers vs. Werewolves)

Release Date - 1991

Genre - Fantasy/Adventure/Sci-Fi

Tagline - "An awesome hero, an invincible villain, time travel to a distant world.  It's gonna be a wild weekend"

Rating (out of 5):

     I had watched this one a few times when I was little and for some weird reason I really liked it.  Funny how things change when you get older.  I guess I liked it because it had the beastmaster in it and I completely ignored the horrible plot and even worse acting.  I did not rent this one as much as I did the first one but I did rent it on occasion.  When I broke out The Beastmaster and watched it I had to try to find this one to watch with it.  I looked on amazon and ebay but no company has released it on dvd.  I found a few vhs copies but they did not have the original artwork so I didn't order it.  So I did what any person with an internet connection would do.  I downloaded the vhs rip of it.

     The film, once again, follows Dar on a quest to prevent his half brother Arklon from finding and using a neutron accelerator which will, in turn, destroy the universe.  Arklon meets a witch with the power to travel to parallel universes.  While proving her power to Arklon, the witch opens the portal and a senator's daughter, who is being pursued by the police, drive through. Arklon's henchmen chase the police back through the portal but the senator's daughter goes in the other direction until her car runs out of gas.  She then meets Dar, his hawk, two ferrets (even though one died in the first movie), and his orange (not black) tiger.  They then head off on their journey to stop Arklon and the witch from traveling through the portal.  Once they arrive, through an unexpected turn of events, all four travel through the tunnel and end up in 1991 Los Angeles.  While there Arklon and the witch run havoc in the city before making their way to a military base which holds the neutron accelerator.  The witch get the pair a set of id badges to access the base and they steal the device.  However, Arklon is an evil asshole and tries to kill the witch.  She then teams up with Dar and head after Arklon.  The three meet up with Arklon in a zoo and a battle between Dar and Arklon takes place in a ring of fire.  Obviously the beastmaster wins because there is a third film in the series.

     After watching this the other night I realized this is a horrible movie.  They took a solid character from a great movie and made a sci-fi sequel when the first did not have that element to it at all.  Similar to the Highlander series with the first film and how  amazing it is and the sequel was turned into a sci-fi shitfest.  The acting is not the best but Marc Singer did a solid job on his part.  The villain, Arklon, looks like an early 90's version of the phantom of the opera and Dar looks like a lesbian with his long blonde hair.  He looked more badass when he had the Luke Skywalker hair cut.  The effects are what you would expect from an early 90's sci-fi flick.  Whenever they use magic is it just lasers and lightning bolts just like in Star Wars.  The only good thing about this movie is the creature he finds in the swamp.  The monster looks amazing but is only in the movie for less than a minute.  Unless your a fan of super cheesy sci-fi flicks I would stay away from this one and instead maybe trim your pubes or something more productive. 

Director - Gabrielle Beaumont (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Starring  - Marc Singer (Beastmaster), Tony Todd (Candyman), and Sandra Hess (Mortal Kombat: Annihilation)  

Release Date - 1996

Genre - Fantasy/Adventure

Tagline - "A legendary hero.  An all new battle beyond imagination."

Rating (out of 5):

 

     I had no idea that there was a third beastmaster movie.  When I was searching for the second beastmaster flick I ran across this one.  I could only imagine where they would take Dar in this one.  After the second shitfest I could only guess they would put him on the moon or something stupid like that.   I wanted to youtube the trailer for this one but out of everything you can find on youtube the trailer for this is not one of them.  I could only hope it was more like the first film and not that hairlipped bastard movie they called Beastmaster 2.

      This time around Dar has yet another brother that was not spoke of in the first film.  This time his brother is king.  However, an evil wizard, Lord Agnon, needs a necklace that King Zed had gave to him when he was a child.  The necklace, the Eye of Braxus, holds the key to opening the locked door to the temple of Braxus.  Lord Agnon has been sacrificing prisoners to regenerate his youth but it only works for a short period of time.  He needs the power of Braxus to remain young forever.  Lord Agnon's henchmen kidnap the king and take him his palace.  However, Lord Agnon does not know that the Eye of Braxus is actually two pieces and the beastmaster has the second segment.  The king, unwilling to tell Lord Agnon where the second segment is, is tortured.  Beastmaster sets out with the kings right hand man, Seth (the same character from the first film but portrayed by a different actor) to rescue the king.  Along the way they meet a female warrior.  She double crosses them and a group of savage warriors take them hostage and steal the eye segment.  After breaking free Seth and Dar come across a traveling band of gypsies lead by a witch Seth was romantically involved with (she turned him into a rabbit).  She promises to get Dar and his animals into Lord Agnon's palace.  Once inside the palace they meet the female warrior again and this time she is on their side and they fight off the guards and Dar makes his way to Agnon.  Agnon retrieves the piece from Dar and opens the tomb of Braxus, however, Braxus' spirit takes over Agnon he is turned into the beast Braxus once was.  The two battle, along with a gypsy gymnast, and defeat Braxus.  

     This movie does not feel like the other two Beastmaster flicks.  The look and feel of it makes me think I will see Kevin Sorbo or Lucy Lawless.  The acting is on par with those shows as well.  There really is no effects but Braxus, once his spirit took control of Agnon, looks stupid.  He looks like he should be on a children's television show.  This one is the better of the two sequels but a turd is still shit no matter what you call it.  Though it is better there isn't much to talk about.  It is just a straight forward sword and sorcery flick and very boring.