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Why didn’t someone tell me Kari Wuhrer starred in Beastmaster 2?
That alone elevates Beastmaster 2 from a cash-in sequel to a popular movie nine years too late to a cash-in sequel to a popular movie nine years too late, starring Kari Wuhrer.
Does this make Beastmaster 2 a prototype of what we get today, where IPs are strip-mined of all soul too late after the fact to make a few bucks?
It is not in my LMO contract to answer such questions. Do you know what is in my LMO contract? That I am required to be in a beefcake calendar featuring the writers of LMO. I will be Mr. June. I thought about recreating Raquel Welch’s iconic 1,000,000 Years B.C. poster, but Boba Phil already called dibs. I’m not mad, though. He does have the swarthiness for it.
Meanwhile, let’s look at Beastmaster 2 because we have to kill time until the apocalypse somehow.
Beastmaster 2: Portal Through Time
Beastmaster 2 starts with an opening crawl. I admire the optimism of these filmmakers. They actually believe that the viewers interested in this movie can read.
A gaggle of horsemen escort a hooded prisoner into a mountain temple. The hood is removed to reveal Marc Singer as the Beastmaster. For whatever reason they decided to bleach his hair. It’s not a good look for a barbarian fellow. He looks like he should play bass for Vixen.
The movie tries to make up for this affront to our senses by revealing Wings Hauser as the bad guy and Robert Z’Dar as a henchman. Does anyone truly like Wings Hauser, or do we associated his name with buffalo wings, which gives the illusion of liking him?
On the other hand, Wings came up with the story for Uncommon Valor. For this reason, I have no choice but to allow him entrance into the Hall of Heroes, even without a thick coating of BBQ sauce.
As for Z’Dar, he deserves nothing but respect for carrying the weight of the world on his chin. I mean shoulders. If anyone else wants to sing praises of Z’Dar, I’m all chin. I mean ears. The dude is all chin. I mean heart. Lots of typos there. Sorry about my fat chin. I mean fingers…
That was awkward, but not as awkward as Kari Wuhrer being interviewed by Conan…
Bassmaster 2: Spare the Rod
Remember the ferrets from Beastmaster? They are back. Remember the tiger and hawk? They are back. They converge on the scene to free Beastmaster from his captors. A rollicking action scene follows that is fun in a swashbuckling sort of way.
The movie then descends into something that might have come from the fevered imagination of a ten-year-old boy who had the chutzpah to pit his G.I. Joe action figures against his Star Wars action figures.
Wings whips out a golden weapon that shoots a laser at Beastmaster. In retaliation, Beastmaster does his patented hawk squawk. The bird descends on Wings with furious vengeance. That is to say, the bird descends on Wings Hauser. The bird doesn’t descend on wings in general, as in bird wings, nor wings, as in a special feature on maxi-pads.
Just want to make sure we are on the same page on that…
Altered Beastmaster
The movie switches to people wandering in the desert. Sarah Douglas is among them. She is a witch, so naturally she is dressed in a barbarian bikini. The movie is aware of this, as well.
“Take care to speak the truth, witch,” the leader growls. “One act of betrayal, and I’ll tear your black heart from your bosom.”
“Surely, you can think of a better use for my bosom,” Douglas says.
Alas, the man does not get to come up with any possibilities, such as how she could effectively nurse babies with that bosom. Instead, he gets an arrow through the throat.
Wings shows up with his army of bad guys and wrecks the place up with his laser weapon. Green bolts fly all over the place. As if that is not enough, Wings uses the device to cause boulders to roll through the scene and crush people. More boulders crash down from above.
Douglas strolls out of the smoking carnage, and Wings says hello by calling her a “whore.” Now that’s how you write dialogue. Take note, Tarantino.
Her response: “Chill out.”
Wait…what? How was that allowed in a barbarian movie? Shouldn’t she say something like, “Frost thy demeanor!” Yet, it turns out a method to this madness exists. It is not anachronistic writing. Wings comments about the “strange tongue” with which Douglas speaks. She says she will show him an amazing thing that will explain it…
Beastmaster Mode:
Beastmaster ends up in a forest/swamp where he encounters a monster on stilts. They battle, and the tiger appears to defend his master. The monster shoots eyebeams at the tiger, and the tiger goes away. I now feel like that ten-year-old boy up above as I try to explain this.
The monster shoots eyebeams at Beastmaster but stops when he sees the birthmark on Beastmaster’s palm. The monster then turns into a friend.
“We are the same blood,” the monster explains. He also reveals that Beastmaster has a brother. If Beastmaster does not find his brother, “the world will cease to exist.” If Beastmaster finds his brother and kills him, there will be “peace.”
“I must kill my brother,” Beastmaster says.
Wow, that was a hard sell.
We can only guess that a cowriter came onto the film at this stage, and by cowriter, I mean, cocaine. Those are literally the first words Beastmaster has spoken. If a random monster shot eyebeams at me and then told me I had a brother, and the fate of the world depended on whether or not I found and killed that brother, I would have questions.
For example, “Is it wise to be that frivolous with a potential kidney match?”
Master of the Beasts
Douglas leads Wings to a rock formation that doubles as a portal to 1990s Los Angeles. She shows Wings some of the wonders this world has to offer, but one item in particular should be of great interest to him. The item in question is a neutron detonator.
Am I really watching a sequel to Beastmaster where Wings Hauser wants to travel from Beastmaster world to LA to obtain a nuclear weapon? Was I so naïve to believe that cocaine had become a sudden co-writer on this movie? We are beyond cocaine here. This is heroin territory.
Before I get my bearings on this development, the movie switches to 1990 LA. Rocking guitar music kicks in as Kari Wuhrer drives a red sports car chased by police. Why? She is late for her sister’s wedding. This is a full-on chase, with weaving around semi-trucks and tearing down alleys until Kari and two police cars drive through a solid brick wall and end up in Beastmaster world.
What drug is after heroin? Bath salts? We are now in bath-salt territory.
“Yo, Darth Vader, is this some kind of movie set?” one of the cops asks Wings.
This leads to a skirmish where a police car blows up. The explosion knocks the two cops back through the portal. Kari, meanwhile, goes tearing off into the desert in her sportscar.
My brain has fled in similar fashion. It doesn’t need this kind of abuse. I already refuse to feed it salmon. Watching Beastmaster 2 is the final straw. We had a good run together, but some birds are too pretty to keep caged. Go, brain. You’re free now…
Ten Nights of the Beastmaster
Kari’s car breaks down. Maybe its shifter broke. Regardless, Kari’s shifter did not as she smoothly shifts into comedic fish-out-of-water mode. Have you ever known a girl who thinks she is funny because simps continually try to build laugh credits with her?
If you don’t, now you do, because that is what we seem to be dealing with here. Chuckle as Kari believes there’s “gotta be an auto club around somewhere.” Guffaw when she says “nice kitty” to Beastmaster’s tiger. Chortle when she requests a “7-11” or wants to “stick with the salad” instead of eating roots. My sides still hurt…from the groaning.
Once again, we are forced to confront the unrecognized genius of Tanya Roberts. That girl knew how to play a bimbo. It’s an art. You can’t just look hot. You must project an aura of overconfident vulnerability combined with a ditzy intelligence. For example, a proper bimbo can’t read a map, but she could disarm a nuclear bomb by poking the “blinking thing” with a nail file.
Hey, did I ever tell you about how A View To A Kill is the greatest James Bond movie ever, and part of that is because of Tanya Roberts?
Wait…why are you groaning? Fine…we will move on, but I will harbor resentment for this.
Anyway, a bunch of bad guys show up and throw water balloons at Beastmaster and Kari, which explode into poison gas. They snatch Kari and take her to Wings.
“Do you know where you are?” Wings ask.
“The Twilight Zone? Where’s Rod Sterling?”
This is like Joaquin Phoenix’s comedy club set in Joker. If he told these jokes on DeNiro’s late-night show, he wouldn’t have had to shoot DeNiro. DeNiro would have shot himself.
KGBeastmaster
Wings and Douglas drag Kari through the portal back to 1990s LA. Not only does this give Wings and Douglas someone to help them locate the neutron detonator (Kari suggests picking one up at K-Mart), it also reduces the film’s budget by eliminating the need for barbarian-world sets.
Beastmaster follows. He also holds up his palm so that Wings can see his birthmark. Wings reveals he has the same birthmark. Wings and Beastmaster are brothers.
Dang, this plot is working like a clock. A cuckoo clock!
The movie now descends is to a comedy as Beastmaster is tased by incredulous police, and Wings and Douglas pick up some “fresh threads” from a clothing store owner that is clearly cribbing Pinchot from Beverly Hills Cop.
“This is the finest virgin wool,” the clothing store owner says.
“Where I come from, the only thing a virgin is good for is sacrifice,” Wings says.
Kari escapes while Wings tries on a new jacket and returns home to her senator father. The police interrogate Beastmaster. Kari magically appears to rescue Beastmaster. Rock music accompanies a montage of Beastmaster and Kari cruising and taking in the sights. I fight the urge to curl up in a fetal position and cut myself to feel something other than the hit points of my IQ being slow drained away by the repeated punches of this movie’s dumbness.
The Beastmaster Within
Can we talk about something else? Would you like to hear about the time I got Ben Gay put in my underwear in junior high? Reliving that is less painful for me than watching this movie. Actually, I am willing to put Ben Gay in my underwear right now…
No, be strong, Wrenage. Suck it up and David Groggins this sucker.
See, the problem with Beastmaster 2 is that it is misguided on a couple of levels. First, the heyday of barbarian movies was around 1982-1985. Arnold and Sylvester then took over and pushed action films into the world of guns and wheels. Then Batman 1989 further recreated the landscape. To come along with a sequel to Beastmaster in 1991 does not make much sense.
Next, no one seems to take this film serious. Sylvio Tabet directed. He has some solid producer credits on Dead Ringers, The Cotton Club and the first Beastmaster, but he let this train go off the tracks. It basically turns into a spoof film.
Jim Wynorski wrote the story. Wynorski also has some fun credits to his name, like Chopping Mall and Deathstalker II. The problem is that he has a goofy sensibility. The first Beastmaster might be silly, but no one working on it treats it that way. They try their little hearts out and deliver a solid movie.
Yet, the gang running Beastmaster 2 seem to have zero respect for what Coscarelli accomplished with the original. The sequel appears to be all a lark to all involved.
The Beastmaster From 20,000 Fathoms
So, how do you get Wings into a high-security military base to steal a neutron detonator? You give him the power to Vulcan mind meld a soldier and steal all of the man’s knowledge. Then Wings drives into the base and steals said neutron detonator.
(PLEASE MAKE IT STOP…)
How do you get Beastmaster there to stop him? Beastmaster sees Wings drive into the military base on a news report that happens to be doing a live feed from the military base.
(MY MIND IS GOING. I CAN FEEL IT…)
Stakes are then set. A general explains that the whole world will go “kablooie” if Beastmaster is not successful in defeating Wings. The two of them eventually do battle in a zoo arena with spotlights and a recorded PA announcer providing cheeky commentary.
The movie ends with Michael Berryman worshipping a car.
(I CAAAAAAN FEEEEEEEL IIIIIIIIT…)
(DAISY, DAISY, GIVE ME YOUR ANSWER DO…BUY A PAIR OF GLASSES AND DULING WILL GIVE YOU TWO…)
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