L'anello incantato

This movie is truly brilliant. It ducks through banality to crap at such speed you don't even see good sense and common decency to mankind go whizzing past. But it doesn't stop there! This movie hits the bottom of the barrel so hard it bounces back to the point of ludicrous comedy: behold as Kor the Beergutted Conan wannabe with the over-abundance of neck hair struts his stuff swinging his sword like there's no tomorrow (and the way he swung it, I really am amazed there *was* a tomorrow for him, or at least, for his beer gut). Don't miss this movie, it's a fantastic romp through idiocy, and sheer bloody mindedness! And once you have finished watching this one, dry the tears of joy (or tears of frustration at such an inept attempt at storytelling) from your eyes because some stupid f00l gave these people another $5 to make a sequel!

Think of this film as a Saturday morning live-action program from ages ago. Even the small tykes will find this one hard to please because it runs like molasses! I can't fully understand how god awful it is to make something too typical and uninteresting, especially in the costume department! Too many warrior-wizard movies out there have used the same old plotline numerous times over, but this is mighty scarce considering its appeal to the little darlings. And who in the world would've let a topless mermaid be cast in the first place? I thought this was a "family" movie! MST3K, here's another fine gem for your 1999 TV season!

It's not a good thing when the first thing you notice in a movie is the bad costume design. It's not just the spangles on everything, like Wigstock gone mid-budget, it's someone who's clearly the Wookie -- he looks to be about seven feet tall and wears a costume made from freshly washed, white poodle fur, who is usually shot at crotch level. Well, I suppose there were all those costumes from THE BIRD CAGE just lying around....

Anyway, story. Yes. Wizard Thom Christopher in a darling spangled hat kills the old king and takes over the castle and, presumably the kingdom, if he could find it. The old king's son, Vidal Peterson is a wizard, but not a very good one. He hooks up with wandering warrior Bo Svenson and the aforementioned fake Wookie, and they go on a series of poorly designed, low-level D&D encounters in their quest to get the magic ring. What magic ring? Shut up, he explained.

Along the way, there's a lot of sets from Dollar Store's Post-Christmas. sale There are also bat puppets, computer effects designed on a Sinclair ZX80, and lots of people in spangly hats. This was the year Bo Svenson joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Coincidence?

Imagine if an 8-year-old tried to write a film, and cobbled together an amalgam of characters from all the films they'd seen-'The Wizard of Oz,' 'The Never-Ending Story,' 'Star Wars,' 'Conan the Barbarian,' 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', Disney cartoons, etc. That's 'Wizards of the Lost Kingdom', in a nutshell.

It's essentially a half-baked coming-of-age story of a young wizard who has to recover a ring before the evil wizard finds it. Whoever made it had huge ambitions, but it comes off like an extended episode of 'H. R. Puffenstuff' just less fun and with much lamer costumes and sets. A typical middle school play looks pretty professional, by comparison.

There's no real character development, with every character remaining just as they were at the beginning. The main character is meant to be trained in wizardry, but acts mentally slow throughout and falls for the lamest, most obvious tricks in the book over and over. Rather than survive on his wits, he seems to survive by pure luck.

As noted, it's plot light, so there's not much of a story arc, more a series of predicaments, none of which has much drama. There's a seemingly endless stream of characters who come and go, sometimes in a matter of seconds, often without any explanation of who they were.

The acting is embarrassing all around, especially number-one billed Bo Svenson, who acts like he's begrudgingly playing along with his kids in the backyard. The others are either amateur or high-camp, like the cartoonishly evil bad wizard and his partner, who make Frank-N-Furter from 'Rocky Horror' seem subtle in comparison.

The action sequences often begin and end without any actual action, as if they couldn't afford a stunt coordinator and couldn't be bothered choreographing anything, so just asked the baddies to drop their swords and run away, then moved on to the next scene.

I don't think I've ever rated anything a 1, but this film definitely earned it. Terrible acting, terrible script, terrible costumes, terrible effects, terrible action sequences. I know 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' is meant to be the king of bad movies, but this one's worse.

Oh....I'm not even sure what to say about this thing. Without question, the worst film I've ever viewed in my lifetime. As I watched, my eyes grew larger, my mouth gaped, and drool poured out. I cannot believe stuff like this gets created. People, this was in THEATRES. Imagine PAYING to see this! Oh the humanity.