Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)

Really Surprised!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Marc Singer is back looking more leathery than before and sporting some rather obvious hair extensions to his blonde locks. Is it me or does he look less buff than before also?So the Beastmaster is in trouble again as we find out he has a half brother who just happens to be conveniently evil. At his side is the somewhat evil sorcerer Sarah Douglas, looking gorgeous as ever, together they find a portal that lead them to Earth in the early 90's and decide they want to pinch a neutron bomb (yep that's right). Its up to Dar to follow them through and errmm...stop this catastrophe!Firstly the portal they go through apparently leads them to another dimension, a parallel universe, not through time at all, but that is merely one huge plot hole of many. The entire film is a complete pile of dingo doo doo, it has nothing to do with the first film and doesn't follow on from that in any way. The only continuity plus points are the character of Dar looking as he did and his creature companions.The main issue I'm sure most fans had was the simple fact this isn't a fantasy film. Its starts off as one but descends into utter gimmicky cheesy nonsense when the characters end up in LA. We then get this horrific trashy B-movie that is filled with pop culture of the 90's instantly dating it horrendously. Its all virtually exactly the same as the live action film of 'He-Man' with Lundgren accept it doesn't have any decent visuals, sound, characters, effects etc...Hell they even parody the film by having a film in film moment when Dar and his new badly acted yet admittedly hot bratty rich teen girl friend drive past a cinema and it has 'Beastmaster 2' showing! That's the type of stuff saved for comedies not fantasy action flicks, the pinnacle of lampoonery right there and out of place.I dunno what the writers were doing but for some reason they decided going down the hammy parody route would work for this franchise. All the action is pantomime stuff with no blood or gore, not that the original had much of that but there were some nice icky bits of darkness. The villains are farcical, even though I love and adore Sarah Douglas her constant silly quips and one liners were awful, whilst the main bad guy was like a low rent Jake Busey...with a Phantom of the Opera mask on that didn't quite fit.I think the term tongue-in-cheek is too kind for this disaster, its...a disaster! There is audio dubbed on badly everywhere, the direction is poor and its all looks like a homemade video. The only one thing that is quite good is seeing the late great James Avery as the strung out police chief. Hearing him bellow out 'Bendowski!' in that deep voice of his is the highlight.3.5/10

...and all from the script. That's because this isn't a sequel, it's... more like an overgrown tongue-in-cheek fan-fic film that just happened to lure Singer in for the ride.There's a lot to laugh at here, and unfortunately the "plot" is most of it. The players are fairly game and give some effort to their portrayals, but the writing just is never serious. Sadly, sometimes it pretends to be, but always returns to campiness before long. The dialog is very dated, too, as others have noted. Prepare to wince.Taken for what it is -- cheesy, spoofish fun -- it actually isn't too bad, IMO. 4/10 for being brisk enough to carry me along to the end and make at least a few actually funny jokes. (My favorite was the line about the 2 guys she'd met in Mexico.) Kari's character annoyed me a lot at first but she got better later. Wings actually surprised me; I thought he made a serviceable villain (at least for this sort of camp), and I was expecting him not to fit well. Then again, I was expecting a real sequel....One thing that needs pointing out is that Lyranna vanishes near the end of the film. The character just isn't seen any more, with no explanation of what happened to her. Oops.So... If you don't allow it to be what it is and instead hold it up to the first movie, it stinks, as most reviewers have pointed out. If you're going to watch it, don't make that comparison. Just mostly forget the first movie, relax, and laugh at the intentional and unintentional humor here. Throw stuff at the TV when the cheese gets too thick. That way you should be able to enjoy it well enough.

First of all: Remember that this genre was quite popular in the beginning of the 90's, as well during the 80's of course. Many out there who're voting, and never seen this before, tend to compare this with modern movies and their film techniques and not seeing it for what it is. Not going to say masterpiece here, nor a work of art, but well above average. Actually, there's one part of this movie-series that are in some fashion a work of art, and that'd be the work they did with the animals. No you say? How do you get a friggen tiger to behave, the ferrets (Of which we won't get to see too much, except for in the beginning, as they "acted" in the first movie. That eagle, how do you train one to begin with? Let alone getting it to lay almost dormant on the ground for that period of time until Dar picks him up?Then there's that nostalgic feeling of the 90's vs. a parallel world without modern technology. That part I like, and also am missing the 80-90's when ppl. were more friendly (Started to become worse during the 90's though) and not like today were we're screwing one another over something as trivial as monetary issues, or even worse, status. I'm not saying that y2k is when it all started or anything, 'cos it did way before that, I'd say like the 70's or something like that, probably before that, but what I'm saying is that it has escalated enormously since technology grew into what it is today when it's easier to hide behind a computer instead of socialize as we did 'back then'.With this I want to point out that "thanks" to science we've become increasingly obsessed about, or should I write picky about how well a movie is made, what funding it had, how good the directors (status) are etc. This is what passes for good movies nowadays. Yeah, sure, a lot of them ARE good, but that's most likely because they (Companies behind them) were well funded and all of that ballet. Back in the old days the filming-crews were experimenting with new cameras, lenses, and generally improvised whenever something difficult to shoot came up. They didn't have the same kind of funding either, as the the investors weren't aware whether it'd be a success or not. And by saying that, they also didn't have that much insight into the technical stuff (A.k.a. - This is how the movie will turn out to become!).It bothers me that ppl. are ignorant of such things, as well as clanking down on actors ("Bad" movies in general), when it's really the (casting-) directors fault, or just a bad written script. It's rarely ppl. take a movie for what it is and how much heart has been put into it.This movie I think they mostly did for fun, and because we ppl. always have it in for cultural hick-ups and also we like it when disasters happen and all that jazz.I gave this 6 out of 10 just because it's fun, retro, and I like Mark Singer (Mostly from V-series really) as an actor.

This time The Beastmaster(Marc Singer) returns only to face off a new enemy Arklon(Wings Hauser) however due to an annoying teenager(Kari Wuher) they are transported to the future where they then duke it out. Lots of (lame) fish out of water jokes ensue. You honestly don't get sequels this rotten to the core. Beastmaster 2 is a painful movie to behold. The references and "hipness" date the film badly (This was made in 1991) and really who wants to see The Beastmaster in the present times? Also of note is Wings Hauser who's embarrassing performance is easily the film's best asset. Singer looks awkward, Wuher is irritating and the whole 1991 slang just makes the movie downright unwatchable. This is easily one of the worst movies ever made.1/2* out of 4-(Awful)