THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER Review by Jon Turner Reviewed 3/99 Posted May 23, 1999
Rating: *1/2 out of *****
At first glance, I thought that The Sword And The Sorceror had promise. Its plotline goes like this: The evil King Cromwell, desiring to take over the world, resurrects an evil, ancient sorceror, Xusia for power. He attacks the kingdom of Eh-Dan and kills young Prince Talon's parents. Given a triple-bladed sword (which can shoot bad guys, like a gun) by his dying father, Talon vows for revenge. Eleven years later, when he's established his own army, the Mercaneries, he vows to take back his kingdom. Along the way, he meets up with Alana, whose village is attacked by drunken guards and her brother is kidnapped by Cromwell. Talon vows to help, and, after a series of minor escapades, eventually ends up rescuing Alana's brother (and several other prisoners), only to be captured himself (in other words, put on a Cross to be crucified!). Fortunately he frees himself, rescues Alana from marrying Cromwell, defeats Xusia, and then Cromwell, all with his triple bladed sword (During the final battle, the blade breaks, but Talon finishes Cromwell off by using a hidden dagger in the blade). Then, everything ends happily.
Unfortunately, The Sword And The Sorcerer is not even half as good as it sounds. What would have been a great film is completely destroyed by uneven plot jumping, bad acting, and gruesomely gory, bloody scenes. Never once does the story seem to connect together, it just jumps around repeatedly.
This problem is extremely noticeable in the opening scene where Cromwell resurrects Xusia. After telling him that he needs his help, he leads the warlock out into daylight, but then stabs him and sends him careening off a cliff afterwards. Wait a minute, didn't the plotline say that he needs the help of Xusia in order to invade Eh-Dan, which he cannot do by military force? If that is the case, why does he dispose of Xusia after resurrecting him? And why does he manage to take over Eh-Dan anyway? These questions are just NEVER - no, NEVER - answered in the film.
Another example is that one moment we see Talon fighting for his life, another moment we see him just about to be crucified during Alana's wedding to Cromwell(!), and finally at the end, instead of settling down with Alana, he just tells her to "wait", and then he just rides off! In addition to the extremely bloody scenes, this uneven plot jumping completely destroys what would have been a great fantasy adventure. Even some attempts to make it exciting, a few fire scenes, battle scenes, don't work. It just completely fails altogether miserably.
The only good thing about this film is its musical score, contributed by David Whittaker, who had an (extremely) short music composing career. The score is boomy and adventurous, powerful, and a billion times better than this film is. My suggestion: steer the hell away from this bloody mess and buy the soundtrack album instead (if you can find it).
Ironically, though, before the film's credits roll, there is a message indicating that a sequel, Tales Of The Ancient Empire, would follow. To my relief (and delight), it never got into production, because The Sword And The Sorcerer laid an egg at the box office, grossing only $39 million.
Critics were right on in slamming The Sword And The Sorcerer, all right. Leonard Maltin rightfully called it "second rate in scripting, and acting" and At-A-Glance Film Reviews called it "a confusing, stupid, unimaginative, unengaging, bloodfilled bore". I totally agree with these reviews, all right, and I hope that this piece of #$%! will be forgotten about. There are FAR better fantasy movies than The Sword And The Sorcerer. I hope you get a good laugh out of this review, but I am not laughing. In fact, my insults don't even come close to the gruesome sickness that this film gave me throughout its 100 minute running time.
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