The Sword and the Sorcerer

Here is the classic fantasy that is infamous for the triple-bladed sword. Oh, this was SO cool at the time. Imagine a sword that fired swords! And it probably did like triple the damage because it had 3 blades! In hindsight, it is silly. However, it sees limited use in the film, which is probably for the best.

Our story opens as King Titus Cromwell (Richard Lynch in one of his classic villain roles) lands on a distant shore and descends into the ancient tomb of Xusia the Sorcerer (Richard Moll in demonic makeup) . He has brought a witch with him who revives the sorcerer. Cromwell has 3 times tried to defeat King Richard of Ehdan and three times been repulsed. He needs the conjuring of such a famous and powerful sorcerer to topple King Richard. No sooner has Xusia made Cromwell's victory certain than Cromwell tries to kill Xusia. Grievously wounded, Xusia escapes by hurling himself from a cliff. Cromwell kills King Richard, his wife, and most of his children. Only Prince Talon escapes thanks to the triple-bladed sword. 11 years later, Prince Micah (Simon MacCorkindale) plots to overthrow Cromwell but he is betrayed and captured. His sister, Alana, escapes the betrayal thanks to the intervention of Talon (Lee Horsley), who is not currently carrying the triple sword. She enlists his aid in rescuing her brother. He agrees but has his own score to settle with Cromwell.

Horsley does a better job at being a medieval swordsman than I would have expected. He brings a lot of charm and humor to the role and even has a few good lines. In fact, the story is quite good and surprisingly well developed. There are lots of characters with conflicting goals; oh, the plotting and conspiring! I particularly enjoyed the Cromwell vs. Xusia dynamic. Purge a few silly and stupid aspects and this could be a really good film.

This is occasionally available on YouTube.

 

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Sorceress

Mira and Mara are twins, born to the villainous Traigon who must sacrifice his firstborn to the goddess Caligara. The wizard Krona grants the sisters great power when they are newborns, imbuing them so that they are 'The Two who are One.' This later figures in the girls being able to synchronize their combat moves and be aware of where the other is when they are separated (it's like a built in locate person). This is used to awkward comic effect when one is having sex and the other feels it. Uh huh. Well, this is a Roger Corman production so that sort of thing is to be expected. Along the way, Baldar the Viking, Pando the Satyr, and Erlick the Barbarian join the sisters.

The world is a bizarre mishmash that doesn't fit together well. Filmed in Mexico, it is not surprising that there is an Aztec quality to set design and even a Mayan influence to the calendar. Baldar, who is a stereotypical Viking, shows up with a 'Babylonian' sword that has been specially made to be stronger than iron. He describes the technique: it's a steel sword. So, steel is just arriving. Though not in common use at the time, steel dates back 4,000 years. Certainly by the time of the Vikings, steel swords were expensive but hardly unique. In addition to the Satyr (whose only word is 'bahhh') from Greek myth, we have some ape men who haunt a misty forest, undead in the catacombs, a deity named Veetal who looks like a cross between a lion, and a centaur, and Caligara who appears to be a woman with half of her face looking reptilian and the other half normal. Yes, it is an odd setting.

It is not by chance that Playboy models were recruited to the film. There are plenty of times when the entirely immodest twins strip down for no particular reason. There is also a scene at a brothel with more hardly-clad women displaying their wares. Heck, there is even a scene with Erlick stripped down.

The movie title makes no sense. There isn't a sorceress in the film. According to the IMDB trivia, Corman gave a list of titles to some college students and "Sorceress" got the most votes. The script may have been assembled in a similar fashion. Here is a film that aspired to be mediocre and fell short. Even so, I got a laugh watching it.

 

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The Throne of Fire

This 1983 Italian Sword and Sorcery epic opens with Satan's messenger impregnating a reluctant witch.  The resulting child, Morak, will someday sit upon the Throne of Fire as the new king unless...  Sadly, his mother dies before she reveals the entire prophecy, which is strange since he has already slain the king and usurped the throne.  However, none may sit upon the throne itself who is not a lawful king; Morak demonstrates the point by having a skeptical noble sit on the throne and promptly burst into flames.  Talk about a hot seat.  Morak's only option is to marry the king's daughter, Princess Valkari.

Standing against Morak is Siegfried the warrior who spends more time getting captured than he does rescuing the princess.  In fact, it is amazing how much of the film involves his latest efforts at escape, which are almost immediately followed by his recapture.  If Morak had just killed him instead of trying to come up with some clever Batman deathtrap, he would have succeeded.

Princess Valkari is a gorgeous blonde who spends almost the entire film running around in a leather bikini.  That alone makes this a film worth watching.  However, her outfit and Siegfried's equally skimpy outfit do not fit the setting.  There is mention of Odin and the very fact that the hero is Siegfried calls Norse Mythology to mind.  Yet Siegfried is dressed more like Arnold in Conan than a Viking.

Mostly weak and unimpressive but Princess Valkari is great eye candy.  Available on YouTube:

 

AFK

Q wakes up to find that she is her online character. She is stuck in game as an elf ranger. The NPCs and monsters are all gone, only other players who have also been stuck in game are around. Some characters, such as Brendon the Wizard, are particularly disadvantaged as magic no longer functions. Rather than a powerful wizard, he is just a portly human with a staff. Of course, there are characters who find themselves very different from their real world versions. Mabel is playing a male gnome and finds peeing awkward and embarrassing. Stephen now finds himself as a barely clothed woman who is regularly targeted for rape.

The show explores what might happen if random players from around the world suddenly became their characters. It was funny to see Stephen declare that she's an American while Vanya the Russian forced her to join his gang. The rule of law has no meaning in the game; this is the rule of might. The show is an interesting mix of comedy and drama. I particularly enjoyed when the character who was a zombie started dancing like she was in Thriller. And then some other player shot her through the head. Comedy and tragedy. Death in game is a real mystery. Is it a means of escaping the game or do you really die? This is not the first 'stuck in game' series but it does it well based on its budget.

 

The series has a YouTube page.

The Wizards of Aus

This series has the greatest opening of any web series ever!  A mountain fortress is being assaulted by hordes of orcs and goblins.  Blood and gore are everywhere.  A dragon takes flight from a nearby peak.  As the camera soars over the vast melee, it zooms in to show us a sassy female archer.  She stabs an orc in the eye with a pair of arrows before spinning around and planting those two arrows in a pair of approaching orcs.  Yeah, she's high level to be doing this.  Then she turns to find someone is arriving via teleport.  Friend or foe?  She aims an arrow.  It's Jack!  The archer offers sassy banter in the midst of battle.  What follows is awesome.

Tired of his life in the wizards' realm, Jack decided to migrate to... Melbourne, Australia.  With occasional flashbacks to his life in the wizards' realm, the series details Jack's efforts to adjust to life in Melbourne.  Of course, this is made quite difficult since his arch-nemesis, Skulldrich, has moved in next door in an effort to get him to return to the wizards' realm.  The constant, over-the-top villainy of Skulldrich is awesome.

The effects are amazingly good.  From the CGI to the makeup, it was all very professional.  The show even managed to get Guy Pearce to star in the first episode.  There are constant corny references to recent movies in the fantasy genre.  There is a scene with a deciding hat, Jack says he is glad he can get mail without being inundated by owls, there is a guy with a flaming skull in a leather jacket.  No, not Ghost Rider.  He is Ghost Writer.  Nice.  We have a Conan-like guy, a mummy who keeps talking about staring with Brendan Frasier in... Monkey Bone.  Jack himself is basically a young Gandalf, complete with pipe and floppy wizard's hat.  The show's conclusion is very strange and puts further episodes in doubt.  Even so, highly recommended for all the antics that preceded it.

 

Ren: The Girl with the Mark

Our story opens with Lyanna and Hunter stealing a peculiar lamp that doesn't seem to offer much light.  As they flee though the woods, they are pursued by red-clad soldiers known as the Kah'Nath, an order that 'protects' the people from the 'marked ones.'  Hunter leads the soldiers away from Lyanna so she can escape with the peculiar lamp.

Next we meet Ren.  She drawing a stag in the woods when Karn suddenly holds a knife to her throat.  He scolds her for not being more wary but she blithely dismisses his concern.  Karn is something of a mentor to Ren, having taught her archery.  He lives in the woods away from the village and is viewed as dangerous.  Back in the village, Ren discovers some Kah'Nath soldiers who are searching for Lyanna.  Their presence triggers an argument between her and her father.  She flees town only to stumbled into Lyanna and Hunter just as they are fighting a contingent of Kah'Nath.  And then the strange lamp is broken, allowing a glowing entity to join with Ren.  Soon thereafter, she is quite literally marked, a physical manifestation of her symbiosis with a spirit.  She is also marked for death at the hands of the Kah'Nath.

For a web series, this is surprisingly good.  The costumes are good, the village is well-realized, the acting is better than usual for such shows, and the setting is interesting.  I really liked the propaganda about being marked and the reverence that villagers held for the Kah'Nath.  The bad guys are viewed as heroes and the good guys are seen as evil.  By the end of the five episode season, the adventuring party has coalesced.  There will by Ren the Magical, Hunter the Fighter, Baynon (Ren's brother) the Rogue, and Karn the Ranger.  Exactly how magical Ren is will have to be revealed next season.  I liked it enough that I look forward to another season.

 

Elric of Melnibone

This short is pathetic and entirely fails to capture the character.  Yes, Elric is albino but he isn't buff.  He's rather skinny and sickly.  Prior to getting Stormbringer - which imbues him with strength and stamina - he used all sorts of medicinal herbs to overcome his various ailments.  Also, Stormbringer is a black sword, not noted for its mirror shine.  I have no idea what this scene is supposed to represent.  I read the original story arc and some of the later novels that Moorcock probably shouldn't have written and do not recognize this.
Elric and his soul-sucking black sword, Stormbringer, are such iconic and famous characters that I am astonished that this is the only live-action Elric I have found.  With all the fantasy characters who have made it to film, I am baffled that Elric hasn't made a splash.

Dragon Warriors

Here is a low budget fantasy movie that is mostly goofball silliness.  It opens with a tale of a dragon that only kills people who are in love.  After this intro, we meet a pair of dragon slayers on their way to save a fair maiden from a dragon about to devour her.  One of the dragon slayers - played by Luke Perry - knocks the other from his horse so that he can gather all the glory for himself.  He makes short work of the dragon and then proceeds to ravish the fair maiden he has just rescued.  It is then that the love-hating dragon arrives and devours the fair maiden!  The dragon slayer gives chase.  And is devoured!  This is probably the best Luke Perry role ever!

Next we meet Camilan, who is dressed like He-Man and telling his parents of his plan to marry an elf.  They are less than pleased as such a marriage will end the pure-blood family line and bar Camilan from inheriting the realm.  However, if he can get his brother Ramicus to marry...  Camiilan sets out to find his brother who proves to be the dragon slayer who was knocked from his horse.  Then follows a ludicrous and often funny adventure as the two very different brothers set out on a quest to rescue a fair maiden from a powerful wizard who commands the love-hating dragon.

Of note, Adam Johnson (Ramicus) is also a major character in the Mythica series; he plays Thane the arrow catcher (not in a good way).  Like the Mythica series, this was also filmed in Utah.  Utah seems to be a great place for fantasy films of late.

The CGI is adequate but certainly far below what you would find in a wide release film.  I particularly liked the orc character; his bit in drag to attract the love-hating dragon was surprisingly funny.  Though it was titled Dragon Warriors on Kickstarter, it is credited as Dudes & Dragons on IMDB.

Mythica: The Darkspore

Following on the heels of the last story, our heroes discover that Teela’s sister, Caeryn, was killed by a necromancer immediately after she had left the Hammerhead Tavern where the party was still celebrating their victory over the ogre.  The party breaks apart.  While Teela mourns her sister, Thane sinks into a drunken stupor, and Dagen exercises his libido, Marek hides in the woods as she is still a slave and being hunted.  It is then that Gojun Pye (Kevin Sorbo) returns and tells the tale of the Darkspore.

 

It turns out that the sacred stone that had been hidden in the sacked temple from the first movie was a piece of the Darkspore.  The Darkspore is the heart of the lich king and it grants near limitless power in the hands of a necromancer.  Gojun had defeated the last effort to assemble the Darkspore but this time it is up to Marek.

 

The party is reassembled to track down the necromancer who killed Caeryn.  On the way, they recruit a new member, Qole the Elf.  Interestingly, Qole accuses Dagen of being a half-breed, perhaps explaining why Dagen looks so non-elvish.  Is he just a half-elf?  Qole is built like a linebacker, which makes for an unusual new elf character.  There is a lot more party strife than last time.

 

The script is something of a mess.  Caeryn’s death is told in flashback despite happening at the beginning of the movie.  It feels like it should have had a voice over saying “previously on Mythica.”

 

The epic battle at the conclusion had what is proving to be a standard problem for Arrowstorm: too many orcs.  How is it that our heroes are surrounded by 30 orcs and yet aren’t instantly overwhelmed?  This becomes really awkward when you see orcs in the background swinging their swords at no one.  Perhaps in future films, we could cut back the number of orcs to avoid this.

 

Marek has just killed a dragon, brawled with orcs, sucked the life out of fog wights, and otherwise proven herself a reasonably competent adventurer.  However, when she returns to town, she is dragged back into slavery by a lone pimp.  Really?  You know, this is probably a guy on whom she could use her life-sucking necromancy and not feel guilty.  No, she just lets him shove her in a cell and where she sits helplessly until her friends rescue her.  It’s like she became a different character.  Worse, it feels like it was just tacked on to allow the escaped slave issue be resolved in a cheesy manner.  I liked the idea of the escaped slave subplot but it was executed very poorly.

 

Gojun Pye arrives on scene suddenly as a flock of birds swarm and become him.  He leaves by the same method.  Kind of a cool effect that reminds you of Dracula turning into a bat swarm.  Anyway, if Gojun can travel in this manner, why do we see him riding a horse across the war-torn countryside while clutching the Darkspore?  Also, why isn’t he involved in this quest?  Unlike the ogre quest, this one seems important enough that Gojun should join it, especially since he led the last effort against the Darkspore.

 

The movie has too many characters.  The addition of Qole to the party was unnecessary and wastes time that could have been spent further developing our central characters.  Likewise, the two elfin bounty huntresses could have been merged into one huntress who might have developed a modicum of character.

 

Overall, it is fun but the series needs a new script editor.  Though I like that it builds upon the first movie, too often it does so in an incoherent and clumsy way.

Swords and Deviltry

Though I first discovered Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in the pages of Deities and Demigods back in the very early 80s (the Nehwon Mythos were one of three fictional mythologies included in the original version, Melnibone and Cthulhu being the others), it has taken until now (December 2015) for me to read Fritz Lieber. Like Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser star in short stories that were mostly published in magazines and only later compiled into books. Thus, this first book is composed of 3 stories. The first two serve as origin stories, one for each of them, and the third covers their meeting.

Snow Women: Fafhrd is a barbarian from the Cold Wastes. The place has a Viking feel to it. The women of Cold Corner hold great sway thanks to their magic. They gather in covens and can conjure ice and snow to target those they disfavor within a wide range. The peculiar magic does not readily convert to D&D rules, which grants it an even more magical quality. Fafhrd is utterly fascinated by civilization and wants to escape the Cold Wastes with an actress who is part of a traveling show. However, his mother, who is head of the coven of snow women, wants the actress dead and her son bent to her will. As Fafhrd tries to convince Vlana the actress that he should accompany her, there are others who desire her. Fafhrd must escape the icy curse that seeks to hold him back and strike down those who would take Vlana as an enslaved concubine.

The story is really quite good and paints a full and deep picture of Fafhrd’s homeland. Of course, from how it is described, I am amazed that all the men hadn’t fled to the warmer lands of the south and left the women to cast their frigid spells. The women are powerful, cold, and vindictive. Part of that probably reflects the presence of the show, which is mostly barely clothed southern women dancing around for the men’s enjoyment. Yeah, the strip club has come to town and all the wives are pissed.

The Unholy Grail: The apprentice of Glavas Rho the White Wizard returned from a quest only to find the still-smoldering remains of his master’s cottage. He found that only a charred corpse remained of the gentle and wise Glavas Rho. In a fury, he followed the hoof marks and found proof that the duke had done this. He would have his revenge. Like the youthful fool that he was, he confronted the duke directly and would have paid with his life but for a timely distraction. Holding his rage at a simmer, he hid himself in a dark cave where evil magicks were empowered. Here he laid a curse upon the duke. But now he was betrayed, unwittingly, by Ivrian, the duke’s daughter. This time, the duke would make sure the apprentice of Glavas Rho would die, and die horribly. Fastened to a rack, his limbs were slowly stretched but, thanks to his magical knowledge, he was able to channel his pain through the medium of Ivrian and into the duke.

Less exciting than Snow Women, this gives a further look into the peculiar magic of Nehwon. Mouser actually uses a voodoo doll to afflict the duke but he also had a spell to hide himself and, of course, the almost inexplicable magic that transferred his death to the duke through nothing more than eye contact with Ivrian who had a hand on the duke’s arm. Wow, that’s some weird and powerful magic. The story also explains the name of Gray Mouser. The white wizard repeatedly said that Mouse, as he called him, was more of a mouser (i.e. a cat) and he was as likely to use black magic as white, thus being gray.

Ill Met in Lankhmar: Two members of the Thieves’ Guild, Fissif and Slevyas, trekked through the streets of Lankhmar with their haul of jewels from their evening heist. Happily on their way back to the guild house, they were set upon by a nimble little man on the one hand and a giant northerner on the other. No sooner had Fissif and Slevyas been dispatched than Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser gazed warily at one another. Neither had expected the other. However, they came to an almost instant agreement and felt a strange camaraderie. Then the bravos arrived. The thieves had had an escort, a trio from the Slayers Guild. Fafhrd and Mouser dispatched them with ease then went on their merry way with a fortune in jewels. After Fafhrd collected Vlana, the trio made their way to Mouser’s abode to celebrate. Despite the rundown appearance from outside, Mouser had a sumptuous apartment within, where he had made Ivrian as comfortable as a duke’s daughter should be.

Vlana was angry that Fafhrd hadn’t killed the two thieves. The entire reason she had agreed to team with Fafhrd was that he promised to aid her revenge against the Thieves’ Guild. After sufficient prompting by Vlana with an assist from Ivrian, Fafhrd and Mouser conceded to ‘reconnoiter’ the guild house for an eventual attack upon it. Dressed as beggars, they infiltrated the guild with surprising ease and even spied a sorcerer performing foul magic. They noted a rat-like creature that they had seen during their ambush of the two thieves earlier that night! The sorcerer dispatched his rat with some foul smoky tentacle creation. The two ducked away only to be summoned by none other than the guildmaster, Krovas. Mouser spun a clever lie that prevented their immediate beating but the arrival of Fissif and Slevyas exposed them. To battle! The pair managed to create just enough confusion to allow them to escape to the rooftop. After losing pursuers in a sooty cloud, the two returned to Mouser’s abode to find Vlana and Ivrian dead, slain by the sorcerer’s smoky creation. It had been meant for them. The jewels, which had been left in the women’s care, were gone.

After turning the rundown building into a funeral pyre for their beloved, the pair raced back to the guild house and visited their rage upon the sorcerer. Though he had conjured yet another smoke beast, they hacked their way through and killed both sorcerer and his rat. All other doors within the guild had been closed as the thieves hid from the sorcerer’s fearful magic. Fafhrd and Mouser left Lankhmar by the nearest gate.

Yet again, the unusual magic of Nehwon looms large. Of particular interest, in Snow Women, Vlana had killed a man by throwing her silver dagger; it had struck him in the eye. Fafhrd took that dagger from her corpse and hurled it at the sorcerer. Where previously tossed weapons had been caught by the smoky tentacles that filled the room, this dagger swept them away and struck him in the eye. Oooh! Magic Dagger! To my shock and dismay, they left it behind even though they collected the thrown weapons that had been blocked. Gah!

So far, it would appear that Fritz Lieber doesn’t think much of women. The Snow Women were cold and villainous, using magic to control their men. Vlana is manipulative and a bit unstable. Ivrian is a trembling and delicate princess who can barely deal with the stress of meeting new people – she has not ventured from the abode since they arrived in Lankhmar 4 months ago. Ivrian’s mother – who died prior to the events of The Unholy Grail – was described as a sadistic shrew who made both her life and the duke’s life a living hell. Then again, our heroes are a pair of thieves and are unlikely to encounter women of the best character. The men look pretty villainous too.

In all, the three stories made for a very engaging read and have gotten me hooked on Nehwon. I’ve ordered the next book in the series and should have more to say about Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser before long.

The Record of the Lodoss War

I finally got around to watching this epic fantasy anime from 1990.  Our story opens in the middle with the party entering an abandoned dwarf mine.  The party consists of Parn the fighter, Deedlit the Elf, Ghim the Dwarf, Slayn the Sorcerer, Etoh the Cleric, and Woodchuck the Thief.  Wow, what a nicely balanced party.  No sooner have they entered than they are attacked by gargoyles.  To escape the mine, they must defeat a dragon which proves to be immense; the whole party could probably fit in its mouth.

 

The story then rewinds to start at the beginning where Parn - armed only with a staff - saves a village girl from a band of goblins.  His wounds are attended by his friend Etoh, a cleric only just returned from his training at a distant temple.  The daring pair decide to deal with the goblins but are informed by a mysterious elf, none other than Deedlit, that the goblins are already heading to the village.  They arrive to find the village under attack and in flames.  They are joined by Slayn and Ghim in fighting off the invaders.  The mayor decides that someone must go for help to deal with the growing goblin problem.  Parn is selected and he is joined by most of his party.  As they travel through the lands, they discover that Lodoss is being invaded by King Beld.  And then it gets really complicated.

 

The plot is quite elaborate and often turns back on itself.  Who seemed like an enemy becomes an ally and even actually enemies are briefly allies against mutual enemies.  This intrigue appeals to me.  I quite enjoyed the role of Karla, an immortal witch whose goal is not evil but some of her methods to achieve it are.  She reminded me a bit of a psychohistorian from Asimov’s Foundation series.

 

For a 13 episode series, our central characters didn’t get a lot of development.  As expected, Parn gets the most.  He proves to be a reckless fool who constantly charges into battles and must be saved by his companions.  That got old, especially since characters he respected kept telling him to quit being so reckless.  Deedlit, Parn’s love interest, is stated to be a high elf princess though she is the only high elf we ever meet.  She possesses magical powers akin to a Druid.  Ghim was a gruff and grumpy dwarf on a quest.  His quest just happens to intersect with Parn’s.  That he had goals separate from Parn gives him more depth than most of the party.  Etoh is a cleric.  “You’re hurt!  Let me heal you.”  How boring can we make this cleric?  Slayn is a sorcerer.  Oh, you wanted more than that.  Um… uh…  Look, there’s a thief!  Lastly there is the brilliantly named Woodchuck, something of a bumbling thief with a cynical view of the world.  He proves to be a good foil for Parn’s heroic idealism and often offers keen insights on the political situation of Lodoss.

 

There were parts that seemed familiar but I don’t recall seeing it when it came out.  John and I watched a lot of anime and it does seem odd that this one didn’t make it into the mix.  The series is based on an RPG that was influenced by D&D and RuneQuest.  Thus, the classic composition of the adventuring party with frequent sallies into dungeons and battles that involve dragons.  It is definitely worth watching.

The Emperor's New Groove

Our movie opens with a talking llama who is clearly miserable and unhappy, lost in a jungle and drenched by unremitting rain.  The llama proves to be Kuzco (David Spade), Emperor of the Incas.  It turns out that Kuzco was transformed into a llama by Yzma (Ertha Kitt), an advisor whom he unceremoniously fired.  Though Yzma had intended Kuzco’s death, her goofy minion Kronk (Patrick Warburton) blundered and allowed an unconscious and transformed Kuzco to escape.  Kuzco awoke to find himself in the care of Pacha (John Goodman) and blamed him for his transformation.  That makes no sense based on the fact that Kuzco is our narrator and has already narrated the part where he was transformed by Yzma.  Anyway, Pacha finds himself torn on what to do.  The emperor had declared his intention to demolish Pacha’s village in order to build a summer palace.  Even though Kuzco refuses to negotiate the fate of Pacha’s village, Pacha agrees to lead the emperor back to the capitol in search of a cure.

 

The movie is generally fun, filled with action, humor, and male bonding.  However, it has too many anachronistic aspects.  At one point, Kuzco and Pacha stop at a diner – complete with menus and salt shakers – and there’s a scene of a put-upon short-order cook.  Also, it turns out that Kronk was in the Boy Scouts, or an Incan equivalent with similar uniforms.  When Kuzco is an unconscious llama, he falls into Pacha’s wagon to escape Kronk.  The problem here is that Incans didn’t have the wheel, and therefore would have no wagons.  Nor did they have glass, so all those vials of potions in Izma’s lab should be clay instead.  Oh, and cork is from Europe and Africa, so the vials shouldn’t have corks.  These repeated and plentiful anachronisms ruined an opportunity to get immersed in Incan culture.

 

Though this movie arrived in theaters in 2000, I didn’t get around to seeing it until last week (September 2015).  Sorry about the delay in my review.

Predator: Dark Ages

This fan film takes place in England sometime in the 12th or 13th century.  Technically, that is after the Dark Ages but we'll let that slide.  Sir Thomas, a Templar Knight, has been summoned to hunt a monster that is troubling the English countryside.  He has a band of hardened warriors, one of whom is a female ranger named Freya.  Brother Joseph, an elderly priests, provides them with a Muslim man who has some knowledge of the beast they seek.  Thomas is less than pleased to be saddled with a Saracen!  The party sets out and Freya soon finds tracks that lead into the woods.  The tracks split, west and north.  Three follow the west and three follow the north.

Yes, it is exactly like the other Predator films with the Predator picking off the heroes one by one.  Still, the idea of Templars fighting a Predator is pretty darned cool.  And, since the Predator is a sporting type, they are giving the opportunity to fight and not just get blasted from a distance.

The production values are surprisingly good.  The acting is likewise much better than you would expect from a fan film.  Quite fun and I hope it spawns a full-blown movie.

 

Krull

This 1983 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Epic has become a cult favorite.  The Beast and his band of slayers travel the galaxy in a Black Fortress that looks like a mountain.  They land on the planet Krull and commence to conquer.  The war is going so badly for the locals that two rival factions agree to join forces.  The alliance will be sealed with the marriage of Prince Colwyn to Princess Lyssa.  Just as the wedding ceremony is completed, slayers come bursting into the palace.  Princess Lyssa is kidnapped and Prince Colwyn is left for dead.

 

Colwyn proves to be the sole survivor and, since his father is among the dead, now king.  He awakens to find an old man patching his wound.  It is Ynyr the Old One.  Though it is not explained, Ynyr seems to be a legendary figure who has lived on a mountain for a very long time.  He proves to be very knowledgeable of exactly what Colwyn must do in order to defeat the Beast.  Along the way, they recover the glaive – a weapon Colwyn thought was a myth, recruit Ergo the Magnificent (a wizard who is mostly comic relief), enlist a band of escaped criminals (Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane among them), adopt a young boy who wants a dog, and encounter a cyclops who knows the day of his death.  It is ever so epic!  Our small band overcomes various obstacles and finally assaults the Black Fortress.  It is a fun action-adventure film and great popcorn fun.  However, when one ponders the setting afterwards, some issues arise.

 

One: Ergo is an obviously incompetent wizard but does demonstrate the power of magic on Krull.  He arrives on the scene as a fireball, clearly a form of magical transportation that he has not mastered but would be really useful.  Transformation into an animal seems to be relatively easy as he does it several times.  Where are all the competent wizards?  Why did we get stuck with Ergo the Bumbler?

 

Two: Fire mares can travel a thousand leagues in a day and race through the air.  Why isn’t this the standard cavalry horse?  I can’t imagine heroic knights who wouldn’t immediately track down some fire mares to allow them to crisscross the world almost as quickly as a wizard can teleport.

 

Three: Colwyn takes fire from Lyssa’s hand and then has an apparently endless supply of flame throwing.  If the standard wedding ceremony on Krull involves the groom dousing fire in a pool of water and the bride snatching it back from the water, shouldn’t there be a huge number of married couples who could hurl walls of flame?

 

Four: When Colwyn finally uses the glaive, it sweeps away several slayers at a time with no trouble whatsoever.  Why did he have to wait to use it?  A lot of his men would have survived if he had been using it all along.

 

The movie ends with a restatement of a prophecy that claims a King and a Queen would defeat the Beast and their son would rule the galaxy.  Really?  This world is medieval.  There are no cars, planes, trains, industry, or any inkling that this is a planet on the brink of space travel.  But the son of Colwyn and Lyssa is going to rule the galaxy?  I would have liked to see how that part of the prophecy came to pass.

Korath - Dawn of Darkness

This web series opens in the world of Korath with a rogue escaping from a prison that is populated by incompetent guards.  Next, we meet a rather tall dwarf with a Gandalf pipe and a huge warhammer.  He hears someone off the forest trail and demands that he show himself.  Suddenly, the escaped rogue has a blade held to the dwarf's beard and insists on gold.  The dwarf gives up some gold but, when the rogue moves to take it, the dwarf makes his move.  A battle commences.  Though the dwarf gets the better of the rogue, he doesn't finish him.  "I could use a man like you."  He offers more gold for the rogue to help him track down a band of brigands who slaughtered his people, including his family.  The rogue accepts.  The duo next meet a sorceress who has been attacked by the very band the dwarf seeks.  She joins them on their quest.  Though the heroes succeed in finding the remaining members of the brigands and reclaiming the stolen items, it is clear that some villain was behind them and that villain has grand plans.

 

It is a low budget show with mediocre acting.  I found the dwarf rather plaintive, his voice reminding me a lot of Daniel Day-Lewis in Last of the Mohicans.  Yeah, that is an unusual accent for a dwarf.  However, he is clearly the central character, at least to this point.  The fight choreography is no better than the acting.  The fights last much too long and consist mostly of telegraphed blows and easy parries.  Even so, I enjoyed it and look forward to any further episodes that may come.

Mythica: A Quest for Heroes

Mythica opens with a temple in a rocky desert being sacked by orcs who are led by a Necromancer (not in the usual sense, since he drains life force rather than creating the undead). Two sisters – Teela & Caeryn – flee with a sacred stone. Before they can escape, Caeryn is abducted by an ogre.

Marek (Melanie Stone) is a slave with dreams of wizardry. She visits the wizard Gojun Pye (played by Kevin Sorbo of Hercules fame) who encourages her to take up a life of adventure. Because she has a bad leg, she is slow getting back to her master’s house. Worse, she is attacked by ruffians who see that she is a slave out after curfew. A drunken fighter subdues the ruffians and Marek rushes away but things get worse. Her master’s money is stolen by a charming rogue and she is caught soon thereafter. Brought back to her master as a prisoner, he must pay to take custody of her. No sooner has he paid than he begins to whip her and tell how he is going to sell her to a brothel. The stresses of the day bring forth her latent necromantic powers and she hurls her master back with the force of her magic, magic that is obviously like that of the necromancer leading the orcs. She must flee lest the townsfolk slay her.

Now an adventurer, Marek finds her way to an adventurers' tavern. There she meets Teela (Nicola Posener), who is seeking heroes to help her rescue her sister. Teela has no money to hire a skilled team and declines Marek’s offer since she is obviously a novice. Marek claims to have a team. She recruits the fighter who saved her from the ruffians, a fellow named Thane (Adam Johnson). Then they forcibly recruit Dagen (Jake Stormoen), the charming thief who stole Marek’s master’s money. They meet Teela the following morning.

The party is formed: Marek the Magician, Teela the Cleric, Thane the Fighter, and Dagen the Rogue. Oh, Dagen is an elf though he doesn’t look like any elf I’ve seen before. Our happy little band sets out on their first adventure. As the central character, it isn’t much of a surprise that Marek is usually the one rescuing her allies or finishing off the various foes.

This is the first of a trilogy of films and clearly echoes PC games with a role-playing bent. I was often reminded of Diablo but there were some very D&Dish moments too. As this is part of a trilogy, Marek has a lot of room for her character to develop. She is a slave, a cripple, a necromancer, a magician, and who knows what else.

The big failing is that the women dress rationally. There are no chain mail bikinis or midriff revealing gowns. Teela’s a looker but her priestly garb is quite modest. Granted, the adventure takes place in a landscape surprisingly similar to Utah where there was frequently snow on the ground.

Thane is the unintentional comic relief since he gets beaten unconscious in almost every fight. The best was when the two women were helping him limp away from a band of orcs and he took an arrow in the back. Every monster had his number. By the end of the movie, it was just hilarious.

 

Good fun and worth watching.

 

This is the Arrowstorm epic.  The trilogy has since expanded to 5 movies, the fifth of which is currently in post-production.

The Christmas Dragon

This rather goofy, sappy fantasy movie somehow mixes a medieval fantasy world with Christmas.  Also, it sets a band of escaped orphans on a quest to save Christmas before it is too late.  The tale opens with young Ayden's parents being arrested for refusing to pay confiscatory taxes.  Moments later, a dragon attacks.  The tax collectors flee but Ayden is wounded and her parents are burned to death in the jail cart.  Flash forward several years.  Ayden lives in an orphanage that sells older children into slavery to none other than the tax collectors seen earlier.  Ayden, who is an ardent believer in Christmas miracles, runs away with several other orphans and the quest begins.  An elf gives Ayden a gem that will allow her to find the magic that will restore Christmas.  Inevitably along the way, the children run into troublesome adults - including the tax collectors - but always manage to outwit and escape them.  At one point, they save a young dragon from dragon slayers by pretending to be goblins who haunt the woods.  The dragon proves grateful and bonds with Ayden.  By the end, Father Christmas uses this very dragon to pull his sleigh to deliver presents to the deserving children of Middle Earth.

Very silly and campy, clearly aimed at youngsters.  It is Lord of the Rings meets Goonies.

 

This is an Arrowstorm movie and features many of their regular actors.  Jake Stormoen, Melanie Stone, Adam Johnson, Paul D. Hunt, and Eve Mauro have roles as adults in this movie about the kids.  Each of them show up in the Arrowstorm epic, Mythica.

Orc Dance!

Gotta love the cameo by Legolas

Hearts and Armour

This 1983 movie opens with Bradamante (Barbara De Rossi) consulting a witch.  The witch tells Bradamante that she will love a Saracen named Ruggiero but that he will be slain by Orlando, the greatest of Charlemagne’s Paladins.  Distraught, she flees from the witch’s cave and rides away.  She is ambushed by four men who attempt to rape her but she is saved when a knight arrives and seriously wounds each of the ruffians.  The nameless knight tells her that she may have his armor so that she is never put in such a situation again.  To her astonishment, the armor is empty!

 

Elsewhere, Orlando is riding through the lands and comes across a settlement. The people are not sure whether to flee or greet him; knights of either side are usually bad news.  Orlando does them a favor and proves to be a friendly fellow.  After that, he joined a number of other Carolingian knights who had been sparring.

 

Isabella (Tanya Roberts), a Saracen princess, is riding through the very same canyon where earlier Bradamante was attacked.  She and her guards are attacked by the same 4 goons who attacked Bradamante.  Having dispatched the guards, they set about to rape Isabella when that same knight arrives, only this time it is Bradamante.  She kills the rapists and declares Isabella her captive.  She intends to take the princess to Charlemagne.  Instead, she encounters Orlando and his band of knights.  The knights don’t recognize this new knight and one attacks.  Bradamante defeats him.  He is greatly chagrined when he learns that the knight was a woman!

 

Ruggiero arrives shortly thereafter to rescue Isabella, who is his sister.  He is saved from death by Bradamante, whom he has never met.  It gets stranger when she tries to arrange his escape that night.  Ruggiero is baffled by the actions of this strange woman, though he is also taken by her beauty.  Elsewhere in the camp that night, Orlando makes out with Isabella.  Before morning, both Ruggiero and Isabella have escaped the Franks.  Orlando and Bradamante each set out to find their heart’s desire.

 

The story is often incoherent and the acting is mostly wooden.  The suits of armor are, like in Excalibur, completely out of place for the time period.  Moreover, they all have ludicrous headpieces so each is immediately discernible; useful for the viewing public but deadly for an actual knight in armor.  Both Bradamante and Isabella provide ‘fan service’ in the film, achieving varying levels of nudity.

 

Ruggiero has a second protector, a sorcerer named Atlante.  This peculiar little fellow is determined to save Ruggiero and keep him away from Bradamante for a good portion of the film.  Though he seems to have impressive powers and claims to be 1400 years old, he proves mostly useless.  He could be classified as comic relief.

 

The movie culminates with a battle between four heroes from each faction.  Orlando, Bradamante, Gano, and Aquilante for the Franks vs. Ruggiero, Ferrau, Samurai, and African Warrior.  Samurai were common in Saracen armies, right?  Same goes for the pole-vaulting African warrior.  Ferrau had this bird-theme going with his armor and even acted bird-like.  Whatever.

 

This is an Italian movie that was clearly inspired by Excalibur.  Sadly, it lacks the epic qualities, the musical score, the story coherence, and even the acting of that far superior film.  The Italian movie couldn’t even do the chrome armor right; Orlando’s armor doesn’t shine.  All in all, it is mediocre but it does have its moments.  Available on YouTube:

 

Warrior Queen

I watched this 2003 movie recently (September 2014).  It tells the tale of Boudica, the Queen of the Iceni tribe in the 1st Century AD.  King Prasutagus of the Iceni chose to ally with the Romans, a decision that his wife, Boudica (Alex Kingston), doesn't approve.  After the king died, the Romans opted to take control of the Iceni territory.  Boudica was not too keen on the idea.  The Romans punished her challenge by beating her and raping her two daughters.  The Romans did not kill her, which proved to be an error.  She assembled an alliance to battle the Romans, sacking cities, including London.  The Romans had retreated until they could coalesce a sufficient army to trounce Boudica's forces, which they did.  There you have a basic history.

The movie follows this but often does stupid stuff.  During one attack, the Iceni managed to burrow under a statue and make it sink into the ground.  Really?  In that same battle, a bunch of children crawl between the legs of Roman soldiers - who are lined up for battle - and behead the political leader who is standing just behind the line of Roman soldiers.  Seriously?  Rome plays a big role and we meet both Claudius and Nero.  Claudius is a soft hand in diplomacy.  The actor did a good job of showing him as a wise frail fellow afflicted with stuttering.  Nero is just a nut and there is no subtlety in his portrayal.  When Boudica rebels, Nero asks Suetonius what should be done.  "Abandon Britain."  Yeah, that's the general I'm going to send to save it.

Suetonius does go to Britain and, though he shows constant and unending sorrow and guilt that he must fight the fully-justified Britons, he soundly trounces them despite being heavily out-numbered.  If he showed any more sympathy, he would have joined her rebellion.

On several points, the story compresses history.  Per the movie, it seems that King Prasutagus made his treaty with Rome and then died a few months later.  No, he actually ruled for around 20 years after the treaty.  Also, the Druids use actual magic, not distraction and confusion type magic.  The Druid makes one of Boudica's daughters invisible!  Really?  Is this a historical epic or a fantasy movie?

The movie is noteworthy for being Emily Blunt's first.  She portrayed one of the raped daughters who supposedly survives to birth future kings, blah, blah, blah.  Or maybe she was immortal.

Noggin and the Ice Dragon

Our story opens in a great hall where a man tells the tale of Noggin.  He begins his story with the great green bird, Graculus, flying near the mountains.  Graculus is a talking bird and chief advisor to Noggin, King of the Nogs.  Graculus flying near the castle one morning when he spots something moving about and dives, expecting to catch a tasty rabbit.  Instead, he finds a diminutive man who claims to be from the Hot Water Valley.  He has traveled far to meet with Noggin.  Graculus takes the little man to Noggin.  The little man declares that an Ice Dragon is terrorizing the Hot Water Valley and he asks that Noggin slay the dragon.  Noggin, who is something of a noble bumpkin, agrees and brings Thor Nogson with him.  So it is that Noggin, Thor Nogson, Graculus, and the little man set out on a dogsled to reach the distant Hot Water Valley.  A party more unsuited for the task at hand would be hard to assemble.  However, they overcome each obstacle and manage to return peace to the Hot Water Valley.

 

The story is told in 4 parts, each ending with a new cliffhanger.  Of note, there is never any fighting since it is targeted at children.  The story is told with very basic animation and only a couple of voice actors provide all the voices and narration.  Troubles are resolved with the tools at hand, be it large birds to get over a mountain, geysers to thaw from being frozen, ice to disable a cannon, and so forth.

 

The Saga of Noggin of the Nogs is a long-running British series that began in the late 50s but has been revived a couple of times since.  It is only vaguely Viking.  The main villain seems to be Noggin’s uncle, the aptly named Nogbad the Bad.

 

I like the idea of the show more than the actual show.  A hobbit comes to ask a distant king for aid against a rampaging Ice Dragon sounds like a good story hook.  The magic forest where the trees move and thus erase any path or road is a cool location.  Also, the Glass Mountains that are nigh-impossible to scale because they are smooth as glass is good stuff.  Great intelligent green birds – that might be friend or foe and can, when working in concert, carry a man aloft – make for an interesting encounter.  That it turns out the dragon was driven from his cave by the true villain provides an opportunity for hasty characters to fight the dragon rather than assist it.  This is a really good adventure that has sapped of its dangers to appeal to a young audience.

 

The Last Unicorn

The story opens in a lovely forest with two mounted hunters.  They soon realize this is a special wood, noting that it doesn’t snow here in winter and is likely the preserve of the last unicorn.  The unicorn overhears the pair and wonders at this notion of being last.  Soon thereafter a daft butterfly arrives and sings mostly gibberish but likewise indicates that she is the last unicorn.  Determined to know the truth, the unicorn sets out into the world.

 

On her journey, she discovers that she is the last and that unicorns are mostly viewed as a myth.  When people see her, they are blind to her horn and think she is just a white mare, which she takes as a great insult.  She further learns that a fiery red bull (no relation to the energy drink) had chased all the unicorns to the realm of King Haggard.  Shmendrick the Magician, who is able to see her for what she is, offers to lead her there in search of the missing unicorns.  But disaster strikes.  The red bull appears and chases the unicorn!  Shmendrick, who is a mediocre magician, nonetheless summons the power to polymorph the unicorn into a human woman.  Confused, the red bull departs.

 

It was interesting to watch how the polymorph played out.  Now called Lady Amalthea, she slowly loses her memory of being a unicorn.  As her memory fades, she falls in love with Prince Lir and dreams of a life with him.  Shmendrick cannot restore her until they determine how to protect her from the red bull.  The solution is somewhat disappointing.

 

Unicorns are quite powerful in this setting.  The unicorn has considerable though not explicitly explained powers regarding the woods in which she lives.  Unicorns are immortal, so becoming human was a shock since she was suddenly dying and felt cloistered by the mortal body.  She was able to negate a witch’s magic with the touch of her horn.  Later, she was able to raise the dead.

 

The movie is fun though there are some failings.  The animation is okay.  The voice cast is impressive: Jeff Bridges, Christopher Lee, Alan Arkin, Angela Lansbury, and Mia Farrow as the Unicorn.  The pacing is uneven, with some parts dragging and others are rushed.  The bandit incident comes and goes in a flash.  There are also some bizarre anachronisms.  The babbling butterfly sings a medley of modern songs while another character mentions barbed wire (invented in the 19^th century).  King Haggard commands the red bull but it is never explained how or what exactly the red bull is.  Would the captive unicorns have been released when King Haggard eventually died of old age?  Might everything have resolved itself in a few more years or would the red bull have stood eternal vigil over the unicorns?

 

Though the unicorn’s quest is a success, it isn’t really a happy ending.  That is refreshing.  Prince Lir has lost the love of his life and the Unicorn is an outcast among her kind because she had experienced a mortal life and now knows love and regret.

Saga: The Shadow Conspiracy

The Saga opens with a cloaked and masked figure aiming a ballista at a dragon that is being ridden by an orc.  The figure fires the ballista, killing the dragon.  By the time the figure arrives where the dragon crashed to the ground, the rider is gone but a trail of viscous blood and footprints in the sand make tracking easy.  When the two clash, it comes as no surprise that the cloaked and masked figure is a woman; she is also an elf.  After an overlong fight, Nemyt (Danielle Chuchran) the elf bounty hunter kills the orc but is cursed in the process; the mark of the shadow appears on her wrist.

 

Meanwhlie, Keltus the Wanderer, a cleric in the service of the Prophetess, has tracked down a dwarf, who is armed with an arquebus or two.  After subduing the dwarf, Keltus demands information on the growing shadow threat.  The dwarf is hardly helpful but Keltus leaves with one of the dwarf’s arms; it has the mark of the shadow on the wrist.

 

Elsewhere, Kullimon the Orc berates the horde for attacking a human settlement which will trigger reprisals.  The horde doesn’t care.  They have been seduced by the shadow and Kullimon is deposed and left to die.

 

Arriving in a frontier town, Nemyt seeks to get her bounty for the orc head and also reveals the marking she got while taking him down.  She is immediately arrested – with some resistance – and tossed in a dungeon.  Keltus arrives moments later and demands that the elf be released to his custody.  It is not a happy alliance.  En route to investigate a lead concerning the shadow, the pair discovers Kullimon the Black crucified among a litter of corpses (the orcs who were loyal to him).  Kullimon reveals the treachery of his horde and that they are allied with the shadow.  It is an even less happy alliance that follows when Keltus releases Kullimon.

 

The acting is surprisingly good for a B-movie, especially being fantasy.  The characters aren’t quite what one expects from the races.  Nemyt the elf has a habit of spitting and her personality is all edges and hostility.  It turns out that she is a survivor of an elf clan that was slaughtered by orcs when she was a child and thus she has no family.  Also, she didn’t have a bow.  What kind of elf doesn’t have a bow?  And what about that ballista from the beginning?  She lugged that thing into position then just left it?  She wields a peculiar saber/scimitar thing.  Keltus is a cleric to a barely explained goddess.  She seems to be lawful neutral since he is blindly obedient and yet is willing to sacrifice allies for the quest.  I did like the cinematic way his communing was done; he would find himself in a desert landscape with the goddess standing before him, wearing a ridiculously long scarf-like thing that swirled in the wind.  When she spoke, her mouth did not move.  Yeah, that was really well done.  On the other hand, for a cleric, he didn’t seem to have much in the way of magic.  After a fight where he was wounded, he washed and bandaged his wound but didn’t use a healing spell.  In fact, his only spell seemed to be Commune with Deity.  Kullimon reminded me of a Klingon in the Next Generation.  You see, orcs are noble warriors, not murderers and raiders.  Oh, right.  Kullimon was wise and loyal and immune to the charms of the shadow.  Kullimon never had any of the inner turmoil that Nemyt and Keltus suffer.  He is a rock, an orc of high moral standing and clear convictions.  Not at all what you expect from an orc.

 

For a low budget film, the production is quite good.  The make-up is first rate.  The orcs were almost on par with Lord of the Rings.  There was some minotaur-ogre thing that was cheesy but the rest was quite good.  The battles were a bit too choreographed and lasted longer than they should.  In her opening fight, Nemyt must have been kicked, punched, or bludgeoned in the face 5 times.

 

The plot is boilerplate stuff.  There is a scheme to bring the god of death back to the world and thus sweep all before him with legions of undead.  Blah blah blah.  To bring back Goth Azul (the God of Death), one had to recover the ashes of this fellow, get the blood from this place under a full moon, and sacrifice so many virgins, and so forth.  Those who have succumbed to the shadow are essentially undead and are difficult to kill.  The greatest failing was the epic conclusion.  In order to prevent the ceremony that will bring back Goth Azul, they send Nemyt – since she has the mark of the shadow – to infiltrate the milling horde and steal one of the required ingredients.  Meanwhile, Keltus and Kullimon will attack – 2 against a hundred – to provide a distraction.  Well, Kullimon almost immediately encounters the orc who stole the horde from him, so the two of them engage in a one-on-one duel.  That means that Keltus is fighting everyone else.  Through much of this fight, we see orcs just milling around, seemingly paying more attention to the ceremony – that would be the one where Nemyt is trying to ruin it – or cheering against Kullimon.  The whole thing was just badly done.  However, presuming Keltus, Nemyt, and Kullimon are mid to high level and the orcs are just 1 HD, this might be just fine in a gaming sense.

 

The movie was made by Arrowstorm Entertainment, based in Provo, UT.  It is hardly surprising then that Monument Valley made an appearance in the film.  The cinematography is quite good.  With a more coherent script, this could really have been great.  Even so, I enjoyed it and look forward to other Arrowstorm movies.

JourneyQuest - Animated

JourneyQuest is one of the great web series, offering great comedy in a D&D setting.  A classic scene is when two orcs relate an incident to a bard, with some artistic license.  Though the live action is good, this animated version is pure genius.  I'd almost suggest that it be spliced into the episode.

 

Jack the Giant Slayer

The movie opens with a farmer telling his son Jack the story of King Eric and the Giants.  Elsewhere, at that same moment, the queen is telling her daughter the same tale, so we switch from one to the other.  The tale tells of some monks who sought to visit god by creating a beanstalk that would allow them to climb to heaven.  Instead, they found a land of giants who descended upon the lands of men, bringing destruction.  King Eric had a crown forged from the black heart of a giant and was able to control the giants with it.  He sent them back to their abode and had the beanstalk cut down.  Such is now the stuff of legend.

 

Years later, Jack (Nicholas Hoult) is sent by his uncle to sell a horse and cart.  He gets distracted by a performance of King Eric and seeks to protect a lady from ruffians.  The lady proves to be Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) who was watching the play incognito.  By the time Jack gets back to the horse and cart, he finds the cart is gone.  Still trying to sell the horse, he gets beans from a monk who assures him the abbot will pay dearly for them.  However, don’t get them wet!  His uncle is less than pleased, scattering the useless beans across the floor, one of which falls between the floorboards.  He storms off to sell something else, leaving Jack to mope.

 

Coincidence of coincidences, Princess Isabelle arrives at the humble farmhouse in the middle of a storm that very night.  She is fleeing home because she doesn’t want to marry Roderick (Stanley Tucci).  Her banter with Jack is cut short when a beanstalk lifts the house.  Jack falls but Isabelle is carried upward.

 

Though his generals counsel that he cut down the beanstalk, the King (Ian McShane) sends a rescue party to recover his daughter.  Elmont (Ewan McGregor) leads a party of 10 men as well as Jack and Roderick.  Sure enough, they encounter giants and are easily overcome.  All except Jack.  For no apparent reason, Jack is a sneaky fellow who manages to be in the right place at the right time.

 

There are some bits that are goofy.  Elmont managed to escape the land of the giants by riding the freshly cut beanstalk all the way down, jumping off just as he was lined up with the castle moat.  Likewise, Jack and Isabelle were on the beanstalk and swung from a vine to land on a haystack; well done, Jack.  Elmont is a much more interesting character.  He has some great lines and is sort of a happy-go-lucky soldier who grins a lot.

 

Inevitably, the princess ends up with Jack, which was weird.  Sure, it was a foregone conclusion but he’s a peasant and she’s a princess.  His great claim is that he used King Eric’s crown of Giant Control to once again send the giants home.

 

The end is rather peculiar since it shows the crown being made fancier until it becomes the British crown, held in the Tower of London.  Oh, this is all English history?  I did not realize.

The Norseman

The Norseman opens in 1006 AD on a Viking long ship in the midst of a storm.  Prince Thorvald (Lee Majors) has sailed across the Atlantic in search of his missing father, King Eurich.  Ragnar (Cornell Wilde) is second in command and master of the ship.  The Wizard (Jack Elam) provides mostly useless omens from beneath his dark hood.  Prince Eric (played by the director’s son) is along for no apparent reason though he is the narrator.  Speaking of the narration, Eric is offering it years later so an older man’s voice introduces many of the characters.  However, if we are going to narrate from one character’s point of view, that character should be in every scene; he isn’t.  He is twelve and it is baffling why he is even on the ship.  Is Thorvald risking the whole family on this expedition?

 

Only three natives are worthy of note.  There is Kiwonga, the chief.  He is all hostility and has no problem tossing wave after wave of his men into the metal blades of the Norsemen.  In a flashback, it is shown that his hostility began when Winetta – the sexy Indian – showed too much interest in Rolf, one of King Eurich’s men.  Kiwonga is all screams and shouts, bellicose in every scene.  Next there is the old woman, who is likewise mostly angry and hostile but more thoughtful than Kiwonga.  Lastly, there is Winetta, the only member of the tribe who has any sympathy for the Norsemen.  In fact, she sides against her tribe to assist in the rescue of King Eurich and his men.  Also of note, she has a sexy formfitting mini-dress whereas every other woman wears off-the-rack skins that do nothing for their figures.  Among the rest of the natives, it is funny to see how white some were.  The call for extras had some loose standards.  Moreover, some were rather portly; we have a well-fed band of natives.

 

Thorvald has come to this distant land with approximately 20 men, a rather paltry force for a supposed Prince on a mission to rescue the King.  In flashbacks, we see the King celebrating with the natives and see that he has fewer than 10 men.  Oddly, the natives captured and blinded the King and his band; I am unaware of blinding practiced by Native Americans.  The blinded Norsemen are housed in a cave some distance from the village and they are forced to grind grain into meal.  So, there is this daily march to and from the cave.  Why bother?  They are blind so running away isn’t much of a threat.  No, it just shows how wicked and mean the Indians are.

 

The battles are a disaster.  A score of Vikings with shields and armor should be devastating to a Stone Age tribe that charges into battle virtually naked and with relatively primitive weapons.  Instead, it is the other way around.  The one mass battle between Viking and Indian is declared a loss for the Vikings though during the battle it seemed as if the Vikings were cleaning up.  But after they run away, Ragnar names it a failure that cost too many lives.  Granted, the Vikings have only one crew vs. a tribe.  Also, the Norsemen did break formation and allow a random melee to ensue which really diminishes their technological advantages.  Though they began with a shield wall, it shattered almost immediately under the native charge.

 

The Vikings are ridiculously equipped.  First, they have horned helmets; this is a common misconception but even the most cursory look at history would have nixed the horns.  Second, they are wearing breastplates; a Viking who wore chainmail was a wealthy man and breastplates were not available; the typical Viking would have had shield and helmet.  Third, their shields are metal; the Viking shield was wooden with either leather or iron rim; also, it was fairly large whereas the ones in the movie are little more than bucklers.  Fourth, they have non-Viking swords and axes.  The axes were particularly jarring, looking like something from a fantasy movie rather than an historical epic.  Fifth, they have crossbows.  Crossbows were not used in warfare until the Battle of Hastings (1066), 60 years in the future.  Apparently, the film maker used Hagar the Horrible for historical research!

 

The natives aren’t any better.  The Vikings landed on the east coast of what is now Canada, not known to be balmy, and yet the locals are running around in loincloths.  The movie was filmed in Florida, which is rather balmy.  Florida is very like Medieval Canada, which is certainly why the location was chosen.  You know, palmetto trees and such were all over Canada back in the day.  Or perhaps this movie presumes that this particular band of Norsemen really did land in Florida.

 

Of particular note, one of the Norsemen is Deacon Jones, Hall of Fame Football Defensive Lineman; it should be noted that Deacon is black.  A brief narration at the beginning of the movie explains that he was captured during a raid in Africa.  Why that makes him a Norseman is unclear.  He is called Thrall, which is the Norse word for slave.  He is the slave of Olaf, a berserker whose tongue he cut out.  Thrall wears Olaf’s tongue around his neck.  Huh?

 

Speaking of Olaf, he is the butt kicker of the outfit.  He is routinely the rearguard and is seen as the lead berserker.  At one point, he drowns two natives simultaneously.  However, he is terrible at throwing his axe and looks less than menacing in his tan skirt and fuzzy horned helmet.

 

Lee Majors is wooden as can be.  His delivery sounds like that of an Indian in a 1950s Cowboy movie – slow and stilled, as if English isn’t his first language.  Even though his dialogue is admittedly bad, he manages to imbue it with all the emotion of a potato.   He also has some odd pronunciations.  He says ‘Norzman’ rather than Norseman.  Then there was the first Norseman who died, Bjorn.  Amazingly, both he and Cornell Wilde pronounced it Bee-John.  Really?  Hadn’t you guys ever heard of Bjorn Borg?  He was a famous tennis player in 1978.  These guys must have sailed from the Fjords (Fee-Johds) of Norway.

 

After the initial encounter on the beach where Bjorn is killed, the Norsemen row up river for a couple of days.  When Thorvald takes the berserkers to rescue his father, he tells Ragnar to meet him at the beach by day’s end.  Fine, it is a river and raising the anchor should get you moving.  No, actually, it seems to be a pond.  There is absolutely no flow.  The ship must be rowed to move and comes to a stop when the rowing halts.  Yes, that is probably useful for filming but somewhat irksome when it figures in the plot.

 

Why is it that every Norseman shot in the long ship must tumble over the gunwale and splash into the river?  None of you could fall inside the boat?  Well, that would be less cinematic and this is an epic.  Sigh.

 

I saw the Norseman in the theaters lo those many years ago and thought it was a great movie.  Seeing it again, it is one long disappointment.  One wonders how such films get funding.