Wizards of the Lost Kingdom (1985)

 

Simon is the son and student of Wulfrik, the court wizard in the idyllic kingdom of Axeholme. But this peaceful life is not to last. Egged on by the treacherous queen Udea, the evil sorcerer Shurka murders the king and imprisons his daughter, Aura. Like the king, Wulfric is slain in the coup d'etat. But before he dies, he manages to teleport Simon, whom he also gives a powerful magical ring, out of the castle.

Unfortunately, Simon loses the ring during his escape, and so his quest to save the kingdom and rescue Princess Aura must seemingly rely only on his own (rather limited) magical prowess and on the combat skills of Kor, a warrior Simon meets soon after his escape.

As Simon and Kur begin the long journey back to the castle, they will face dangers including insectoid monsters sent by Shurka, a family of cyclopses with a grudge against Kor, and wicked practitioners of black magic.

Rarely has a film's promotional imagery, such as the picture above, made so many promises the movie has no intention of fulfilling.

I saw this film back in the late 80s, and remembered it as being "pretty bad". On the re-watch, it emerged that my memories were egregiously rose-tinted, because this is several orders worse than that.

The film's list of flaws can be boiled down to a fairly short list. One item, in fact:

• Everything

But while absolutely true, that list's not very informative, so let's drive in a little deeper and explore some of the most egregious issues.

Starting with the biggest: the production was a mess, on every front.  Writer Ed Naha later recalled "When they whittled it down to what was useful from the footage, it only ran 58 minutes".  This was obviously not enough for a feature film, but producer Roger Corman, master of cost-saving antics, had a simple solution: yank a bunch of footage from some of his earlier films (primarily Sorceress and Deathstalker) and edit them in wherever they would fit.  The fact that Wizards of the Lost Kingdom was clearly pitched at a family-friendly PG rating, and those earlier movies had both been R-rated 'sex and violence' fests would not be allowed to stand in the way.  The resulting unsubtle padding stands out jarringly in both visual style and tone.  The main sequences have a deliberate orientation toward a slapstick, PG rated, kid friendly adventure, with lots of silly pratfalls and other comedy tropes ... and then there are the inserted scenes that are much more grim and intense.

The script also has some nonsensical moments, perhaps as a result of the clumsy editing job. For instance, ultimately Shurka and Queen Udea turn on one another. Shurka magically binds her and is going to kill her. But then he doesn't and wanders off instead. So a servant rescues her ... and then they both follow Shurka. On meeting him, they ... stare at him for a bit. And then he kills them after all. What was that all about? Except possibly "adding another minute to the run time"?

Another production failure occurs with the creature costumes. For instance Simon has a big furry friend/pet (how intelligent it is isn't really clear) named Gulfax. If you imagine Chewbacca, if Chewbacca was modelled after an overweight white poodle, you've got some idea of the overall look. As Simon's pretty much constant companion, Gulfax is in a lot of shots: and in every single one of them, it is patently clear that the performer inside the costume has almost now ability to actually do anything.

The other monster costumes are no better.

The problems certainly don't end there: Wizards of the Lost Kingdom has some of the worst action staging I have seen in some time, and the acting is not much better. It is a failure on pretty much every front ... except the commercial, that is. It did well enough on video that Corman produced a sequel a few years later.

I recommend you let this kingdom remain lost.