When a genre wears itself out the next-to-last step is self-parody, and BEASTMASTER 2: THROUGH THE PORTAL OF TIME falls right in line. The foolish original came along in 1982, as part of a boomlet in CONAN-influenced sword-and-sorcery epics. But the theatrical market for wizards and
warriors has since dried up, and this direct-to-video sequel drops the earnest attitude of its predecessor in favor of laughs.
The title hero is Dar (Marc Singer), a muscular barbarian who can communicate with and command a rather skimpy posse of animal friends--a tiger, an eagle and a pair of ferrets. In this adventure he's warned that his long lost brother Arklon (Wings Hauser), an evil monarch, has plans that could
bring calamity to the universe. Sure enough, Arklon has linked up with Lyranna (Sarah Douglas), a shapely witch who wisecracks in modern slang--a trait she picked up from her travels in time and space via a "dimensional portal" to "a planet called LA."
As Arklon and Lianna putter with the portal an unforgivably perky Valley-girl teen named Jackie Trent (Kari Wuhrer) speeds through it in her red Porshe. "Way rad!" is her evaluation of Dar and his savage realm; she thinks he's with a circus. Arklon and Lyrrana go through the portal in search of
the neutron detonator, a newfangled doomsday bomb hidden on a military base conveniently close to Los Angeles. Dar and Jackie pursue them, and lots of culture-shock gags ensue. The Beastmaster and his animal entourage get chased by the LAPD and stuck in the Griffith Park zoo, while Arklon and
Lyranna shop for leather villainwear at a trendy Rodeo Drive-type boutique (staffed by a swish with the worst mock-French accent of the year). Eventually Arklon is destroyed, the neutron detonator is disarmed and Dar goes back to his homeworld. A neat punchline finds that red Porshe being
worshipped there as a god.
Observant viewers will spot a credit stating that this whole rigmarole is "based" on a novel by fantasy and science-fiction author Andre Norton. Indeed, her 1959 work The Beastmaster was supposedly adapted for the first film, but when Norton read the screenplay she was so appalled that she
dissociated her name from the project. On the advice of her agent, Norton got the credit restored for the sequel, even though she summed up both films as "atrocious." Neither storyline has anything to do with the literary precursor, a neat blend of space opera and Western involving a a spacegoing
Navaho war hero who settles the Final Frontier with his fur-and-feathered allies.
No, the real auteurs behind BEASTMASTER 2 are two of the seven (!) credited screenwriters, specifically Jim Wynorski and R.J. Robertson, longtime Roger Corman cohorts with a nutty sense of humor and an appreciation of the B-Movie mentality. Wynorski in particular seems to specialize in camping up
low-grade sequels. He's worked on DEATHSTALKER II, BIG BAD MAMA 2, THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING and others. So the satire in BEASTMASTER 2 hardly breaks new ground, but it's a tonic that makes the minutes pass more or less agreeably. The time-warp stuff isn't too original either; one gets the feeling
it was an expediency that saved the producers the cost of building big, primordial sets in the Arizona desert.
The violence is mild, so bloodless that even Dar's pet eagle has a Tinkerbell-style recovery from a severe wound. If anything makes BEASTMASTER 2 questionable fare for impressionable kids (apart from swearing) it's MTV-personality Kari Wuhrer's hyper-sassy role as a rich senator's irresponsible
daughter, first seen recklessly outracing the cops in her sportscar as she trills "I am so cool!" Parents may prefer Wings Hauser's Arklon as a role model. The bad news for mankind is that Jackie Trent stays on Earth at the end, but the filmmakers apparently forgot all about Lyranna, who just
vanishes from the narrative. Too bad, because she's truly a fun vamp character played to the hilt by the sexy Douglas. Leading man Singer is appropriately deadpan and impressively pumped-up after ten years, even if his long blond hair in this outing is a stringy wig.
The film's highlight comes when the transplanted Dar does a double-take at an LA cinema marquee promoting a movie called ... BEASTMASTER 2! There's more truth to that than one might think; LA was one of the few markets where this sequel received theatrical release before passing through the Portal
of Home Video in 1992. (Violence, profanity.) leave a comment
