Jeffrey Combs was off his usual form in his entry in the FA Cup of Actors, Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation (only receiving a rating of 2/10) so this round is all for the taking. Although when I saw that Marc Singers attempt at goal was Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time I was dreading another replay. I saw this when it was first released and was disappointed in it to say the least. The original Beastmaster is a bit of a classic but the sequel just dumbs everything down and plays it for cheesy laughs.
Watching it again now isn't such a bad experience. I actually quite enjoyed the late eighties/early nineties cheese factor. It is certainly more enjoyable than Combs' entry. I'm finding at the moment that I would rather watch something of this ilk than a more worthy film like 12 Years a Slave. It's no doubt a good, thought provoking film but I'm much happier watching a bloke falling forty foot and landing in the seat of an open-topped car without even bumping his coccyx.
It's got a really stupid plot too: (Jim Wynorski was involved in the writing, after all) Beasty is told early on that he has to find his lost brother before the Autumn equinox or the world will end. Cilla Black never had that kind of pressure on Surprise, Surprise. His quest involves him going through the titular portal into modern day L.A. and suffice to say, lots of fish out of water hi-jinx take place.
His modern day chum to guide him through this minefield is spoilt teenager Jackie Trent (Kari Wuhrer - who I remember from Stuart Gordon's King of the Ants, can't think why?) and initially she's every bit as annoying as you'd expect. She does come round to being slightly more likeable in the end and even gets a couple of furry little presents from our bestial buddy. Sadly she doesn't do a Tanya Roberts (or for that matter wear a costume like the one on the cover).
Every great animal loving hero needs an evil Ginsters eating villain and here it is Arklon (played by Wings Wauser of Mutant fame). He is a complete panto villain with mucho swooshing of his cape and general charging about laughing like a maniac. One of the funniest scenes involves him in a department store acquiring some new clothes from a rather camp manager. Predictably enough, it all ends in tears. In another mildly amusing scene he blasts some huge rocks with his laser (?) and they proceed to roll around crushing all and sundry under their gigantic mass of polystyrene.
Marc Singer fits back into the role of Beast Boy easily, although this time he seems to be more of a passenger. He gets to swish his sword around in trademark style but it's not given as much weight as you'd expect. It's a little bit throwaway. Even so, he's eminently watchable. And you'd have thought that being an animal lover he'd be a vegetarianialist. Well you'd be mistaken. He tucks straight into a gorgeous slice of Pek with gusto. I wonder if he can feel what the Pek feels and see what the Pek sees as it slips down into his belly.
Not content with showcasing the work of such stars as Singer, Hauser and Wuhrer, there are also appearances from Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Robert Z'Dar (Maniac Cop) and Sarah Douglas (Superman II) who gets the most screen time as a witchly companion to Arklon.
Don't expect this to be anywhere near as great as the original and you shouldn't come away too disgruntled. It's good enough to put Marc Singer through to the next round of the FA Cup of actors and sadly we have to say goodbye to Jeffrey Combs. 4/10 evlkeith If you like this you could try: The Beastmaster, Beastmaster: The Eye of Braxus.
I kind of knew what to expect: it's called Dragon Quest and I got it from Poundland. The whiff of 'Straight to DVD'ness was so excessively pungent I nearly died from asphyxiation, yet I gave it a chance. I'll come to the reason why later...
The massive shame about this film is that they had access to some okay locations, the effects capabilities to render large battle scenes, all of the requisite technical gear, and a bunch of bargain basement actors, but the script is so unoriginal and dull it begs the question, "Why did they even start filming?" The cynical part of me, (is there any other part?) might say that they knew that it would make a modest amount of money on DVD, and it probably has. There must have been virtually zero effort at the writing stage to try to inject any new ideas or more importantly, fun.
See what you think to this: A young lad, Arkadi (Daniel Bonjour - the French male version of Hello Kitty) is on a quest to save a kingdom. On the way he meets a merry band of chums who either help or hinder him on his quest. There is a piece of jewellery that plays an important/boring part in the proceedings. And there's a dragon type thing that's all black and charred because it's on fire. Sound strangely familiar?
Despite all this it could have been entertaining. Arkadi has to face a series of tasks to gain precious stones for his manly necklace. But they're all so nondescript that it's not that clear sometimes why he's actually received a stone. Here's an example of how terrible they are: Arkadi sees a gorgeous naked lady having a bath and she beckons him to join her. He doesn't. Here you go lad, have a stone. What kind of a hero is he? He'd rather decorate his accessories rather than wink and click at ladies. He's pathetic.
Yet, Dragonquest has one saving grace, one glimmer of fun: Marc Singer (AKA The Beastmaster, and the main bloke off of the original V). He hams it up like a prime piece of Pek and gurns at every available opportunity. But he's fun. I'd lose consciousness for long periods of time watching this slice of purgatory, but hearing his voice always brought me back. He even gets to show his sword swinging moves in a Beastmaster inspired shot. It was the only part of the film that received a little cheer from me. Marc Singer is another blameless actor in the style of obscurendure hero, Mark Dacascos. He can do no wrong where I'm concerned.
So in the final rating, all of the points are only awarded due to Marc Singer. If you do feel the need to watch this, just keep fast forwarding to the Singermeister. You won't be missing anything. 2/10 evlkeith
If you like this you could also try: The Beastmaster, Hawk the Slayer, and if you're really desperate for something to watch, Deathstalker.
