I couldn't help it. The Beastmaster offered up such treasure, that I went back to the well to see what happened next.
He gets a rude awakening from 1991 - or as the soundtrack would suggest, quite possible 1985 when a spoiled daughter of a California senator crashes into his alternate reality and then vice versa.
Oh, it gets real, people. Super real.
The main villain this go around is The Beastmaster's brother himself. A man with a 90s bass player's ponytail and a Lady Gaga look that was way ahead of its time.
He's also got a little sidekick with him - she's a witch and enjoys wrapping herself in drapery.
Her big selling point for employment with him (she's aiming for queen, but he's considering other candidates) is that she's discovered a portal into 1990sish Los Angeles.
You just put your hand in front of it and its like you're touching a green screen.
As sort of an added bonus, she casually mentions that 1990s L.A. has things like detonators and he should get one. He's totally onboard without actually knowing what one is and that's what kicks our story off.
You'll be happy to know our Beastmaster is back and holds a face that looks like he's trying to do simple math.
Enter our heroine. Spoiled LA girl (which one isn't, amirite?) and she gets transported to another dimension while saying witty things like, "Where's the car club when you need it?" "How close am I to the beach?" She's a treasure.
They meet and it tries so hard for hilarity, which sadly is not this movie's only point of failure.
Through events that really and truly don't matter, the action gets relocated in 90sish L.A. and our girl is forced to take the villains shopping.
Feel free to read that sentence over and over. Its not going to make more sense.
She takes them shopping and Beastmaster's brother is talked into trying on a suit by a fake French accented salesman.
At some point the discussion of virgins came up. It was really uncomfortable.
I've never been involved in a criminal investigation here in Los Angeles, but I'd like to think that when one happens, the head detective looks around at the damage, hears about a possibly homicidal maniac, shrugs and goes, "I'll write up some paperwork for Monday."
Dar's brother has a neat trick that's not in anyway ripped off from Spock that involves mind melding. He simply transfers any knowledge someone might have by forcing his fingers deep into someone's face.
So its totally different and if you say otherwise, well, you're just a hater.
With this completely original technique that has never been seen before in a movie or tv series, Dar's brother learns that there's a bomb hidden at a military facility somewhere in the larger Los Angeles area.
We're then given a visual treat of watching Dar learn what rock and roll is (editors correction: bad rock and roll is) and how to say the word "asshole". And then he eats most of a deli tray. I'm choosing not to show that part.
Look at these two - they know more than you ever will.
So our villains disguise themselves as ineffective military personnel and steal a detonator from even more ineffective military personnel. Which just led me to wonder what we're actually doing with all that military spending every year, and why really bad movies have this as a thematic element.
It was a little like a sitcom in training:
"Honey, where's my fake mustache for our military encampment heist?"
"I thought that was your mom's!"
End scene. (didn't actually happen, but this movie makes you daydream about things you'd rather be seeing)
Which leads us to the final scene...
Because Dar doesn't know how to do anything on his own, he forces animals to once again, do all of his dirty work, which is them telling him that his brother is hiding out at the L.A. Zoo.
And then a laser light show starts, so naturally this music video battle without the music begins.
Powers are quite the match up as Dar commands his killer ferrets to once again kill for him. Its been two movies now and The Beastmaster really has lived up to his name but failed on all fronts as a action hero.
Speaking of which...
It comes time for goodbyes (time portals aren't always hanging around hoping people will jump through them after all) when there's a really awkward exchange where a spunky Cali teen asks out grizzled and moist Beastmaster on a date for the next time he's in town.
He gently turns her down but gives her the best consolation prize of them all...
She's keeping the ferrets, which honestly, is so much better than learning what a relationship with the Beastmaster would hold...
(Spoiler alert: Telling you what you think and ordering you to do all of his dirty work.)
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