Dar l'invincible 2 - La porte du temps

A middling sequel to the original, not as good as that but far better than the third. This one does actually have a budget, albeit a B-movie budget, and starts off with the usual low rent heroic action before moving the action to then-modern day L. A. where the usual fish out of water action takes place. A typical mix of CONAN and DR DOOLITTLE here, a far cry from THE ICEMAN COMETH but reasonably entertaining if you're in the right cheesy mood. The cast includes genre standby Wings Hauser, a young Kari Wuhrer, and Uncle Phil himself.

This time, it gets more interesting, but in some scenes too violent or out of control. Once again, now grown up Dar still has his pets and has to kill his brother after trying to discover what the real world looks like. Dar also discovers a new friend who lives in the city of Los Angeles where Dar's brother entered. It's not that bad until Dar's brother tries to destroy the world. In the beginning of the movie, some kids who are allowed to see this might be interested seeing a scene where the crow who was in the first movie nibbles some of the villian's face. They just don't show blood to prove it.

I really liked cult filmmaker Don Coscarelli's fantasy "Beastmaster" and this follow-up "Through the Portal of time" really does decide to go in a different (much campier) direction, which looked like it could have been its downfall. Despite its bad wrap (although it does have its fans), mostly modern-day setting and rather goofy tone it still remains quite a competently, enjoyable good and evil sword-and-sorcery comic strip venture. For most part it seems to be playing for laughs (sometimes intentional other times not), and the fish out water novelty (Dar trying to stop Arklon getting his hands on a dangerous weapon while in Los Angeles) has its amusing moments. The tone and style had me thinking of another sword-and-sorcery caper with a very tongue-in-cheek approach "Deathstalker II" and no surprises why, as Jim Wynorski had a part in both screenplays. Dialogues are risible, but there are few humorous in-jokes within and the direction is constantly spirited. The performances are fairly animated, almost mock-like. Bryan Singer returns as Dar the Beastmaster. Bringing all the right qualities to the role, although it does feel like a self-parody and there's no doubts he really likes to boast about his "friends". Along for the ride are his animal friends (although the panther has been replaced by a tiger). Wings Hauser decked out in long blonde hair, phantom of the opera style of mask, a cheesy grin goes about his evil shtick with great aplomb, by waving about his magic wand / bow with little respect and having organisms when reading minds. Sara Douglas who parades around provides the wit as the witch Lyranna and the lovely Kari Wuhrer perks it up in her role as the modern-day girl who gets caught up helping Dar. Some other faces show up like; James Avery and very minor parts for Michael Berryman and Robert Z'dar. It's not perfect, but it's a breezy and theatrically hammy time-waster.

First of all: Remember that this genre was quite popular in the beginning of the 90's, as well during the 80's of course. Many out there who're voting, and never seen this before, tend to compare this with modern movies and their film techniques and not seeing it for what it is. Not going to say masterpiece here, nor a work of art, but well above average. Actually, there's one part of this movie-series that are in some fashion a work of art, and that'd be the work they did with the animals. No you say? How do you get a friggen tiger to behave, the ferrets (Of which we won't get to see too much, except for in the beginning, as they "acted" in the first movie. That eagle, how do you train one to begin with? Let alone getting it to lay almost dormant on the ground for that period of time until Dar picks him up?

Then there's that nostalgic feeling of the 90's vs. a parallel world without modern technology. That part I like, and also am missing the 80-90's when ppl. were more friendly (Started to become worse during the 90's though) and not like today were we're screwing one another over something as trivial as monetary issues, or even worse, status. I'm not saying that y2k is when it all started or anything, 'cos it did way before that, I'd say like the 70's or something like that, probably before that, but what I'm saying is that it has escalated enormously since technology grew into what it is today when it's easier to hide behind a computer instead of socialize as we did 'back then'.

With this I want to point out that "thanks" to science we've become increasingly obsessed about, or should I write picky about how well a movie is made, what funding it had, how good the directors (status) are etc. This is what passes for good movies nowadays. Yeah, sure, a lot of them ARE good, but that's most likely because they (Companies behind them) were well funded and all of that ballet. Back in the old days the filming-crews were experimenting with new cameras, lenses, and generally improvised whenever something difficult to shoot came up. They didn't have the same kind of funding either, as the the investors weren't aware whether it'd be a success or not. And by saying that, they also didn't have that much insight into the technical stuff (A.k.a. - This is how the movie will turn out to become!).

It bothers me that ppl. are ignorant of such things, as well as clanking down on actors ("Bad" movies in general), when it's really the (casting-) directors fault, or just a bad written script. It's rarely ppl. take a movie for what it is and how much heart has been put into it.

This movie I think they mostly did for fun, and because we ppl. always have it in for cultural hick-ups and also we like it when disasters happen and all that jazz.

I gave this 6 out of 10 just because it's fun, retro, and I like Mark Singer (Mostly from V-series really) as an actor.