A fat old wizard (Mel
Welles) joins up with a young boy to defeat three evil sorcerers and restore
order to the kingdom. They find a
bartender who used to be a great warrior called “The Dark One” (David
Carradine) to help them on their quest. The
Dark One kind of flakes out on our heroes for much of the second act, so they have
to get a sexy warrior woman (Lana Clarkson) to lend them a helping hand. Eventually, The Dark One returns just before
the big climax to kick a little ass.
Like the first film,
Wizards of the Lost Kingdom 2 features lots of scenes from other Roger Corman
movies. This time, they steal footage
from Warrior and the Sorceress (which also starred Carradine) and Barbarian
Queen (which also starred Clarkson). The
swordfights and fight scenes are even sloppier this time around (if you can
believe it) and the movie is curiously low on goofy monsters (although there is
a decent werewolf vs. pig-man scene).
Director Charles B.
Griffith, a veteran of many Corman movies, brings little of the humor he is
known for to the film. Since this is a
sequel in name only, you’d think he’d go for broke and do something closer to
his sensibilities. Instead, he delivers
a fairly ho-hum sword and sorcery epic.
Whenever he does ape the original, the results are often lackluster
(like the young hero’s encounter with a sexy enchantress).
The cast is fun to
watch though. Carradine looks half
asleep (or drunk) most of the time, but even on auto-pilot, he manages to give
the best performance in the movie.
Welles also has some fine moments as the portly wizard. I also enjoyed seeing late Clarkson doing
what she did best, although, unfortunately, her character disappears from the
proceedings much too soon. Likewise, the
ever-reliable Sid Haig isn’t given a whole lot of screen time as one of the
three evil sorcerers.
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