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 Talon is a "daring mercenary" who uses a "lethal three-bladed sword" and has to save a princess and kill a warlock. Includes "brutal battles, luscious maidens, savage monsters and more!" 1982, 99 minutes, Widescreen DVD
How in the world am I supposed to take a barbarian movie seriously when one of the barbarians is the guy that played Frank on Murphy Brown? You remember Frank, don't you? He was the bald guy that was really insecure. I only watched Murph to keep tabs on what those crypto-socialists in Hollywood were trying to shove down an unsuspecting American public's throat when what they needed to be doing was making more family-friendly fare like Scarecrow and Mrs. King and Barnaby Jones. The only thing that could have made this movie worse than Joe Regalbuto's presence would have been if the guy who played Miles Silverberg was in it instead. Heck, if you had to put someone in this thing from Murphy Brown, my vote would go to Lily Tomlin. She was about the most masculine thing about that show.
Internet-review-site-whipping-boy Albert Pyun embarked on his career as a film director whose lack of talent is only exceeded by his stunning ability to continue to find work with this movie. As the old Chinese proverb from Nostradamus says, "the filmography of a thousand horrible films begins with but one starring the charisma-impaired Lee Horsley." Certainly that's a bit of a loose translation of that particular Bible verse, but the point is that when your opening salvo on an unsuspecting public is to cast the once and future Matt Houston as a guy mucking about some fake medieval world with a clumsy-looking three pronged sword that somehow fires its blades at people, no good is going to come of allowing you within a country mile of camera ever again.
After already checking out one of Albert's other high profile films, Cyborg, I was really only surprised that the movie was a stupid, repetitive effort punctuated by an over-reliance on cinematic gimmicks, like slow motion shots, flashbacks, and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Having heard about this Pyun guy from others, I had expected much worse. I had also seen his Captain America and while that was putrid, it was putrid in a way that didn't leave me feeling like I'd been bent over the punch table and treated like the freshman at a senior prom. During my previously undocumented Christopher Lambert phase of 2001, I watched Adrenalin: Fear The Rush and I didn't even realize it was an Albert Pyun movie! Now, that's not really an endorsement because I've spent the better part of two days trying to remember something about that movie and the only thing that comes to mind are scenes from Lambert's later film, Resurrection (haunted cop after serial killer - how could I ever forget that?).
I started thinking then that maybe all this crappy stuff being said about how crappy Albert Pyun was, was just a bunch of lazy bones piling on a guy who's had to take a few jobs like Kickboxer 4: The Aggressor and Nemesis 4: Death Angel because the payment on the Aerostar was due. The fact that he's kept Ice-T off the streets and made something like six films with him ought to earn him some kind of recognition from the government. I know, I haven't had to listen to any hypersensitive law enforcement types whine about how they peed into their jackboots because of some poser song of his lately. (Remember when Sister Souljah was the biggest threat to our nation? How quaint!)
Well, after restlessly sitting through this slapdash combination of bad hair and even worse plotting, I now know the Albert Pyun that everyone was talking about. I don't think anyone involved with this movie had any idea what they were doing (except for Bull from Night Court. He was wisely unrecognizable in his few scenes as the evil sorcerer Xusia.). Al, who is also credited with being one of the writers, manages to completely muddle even the simplest story elements, such as who is related to who and how. In an effort to be fair to Albert, I even went back to parts of the movie to make sure he didn't explain things after I mentally checked out when I got a gander at how ugly everyone's wig was in this movie, but I still had no idea who these people were.
Here's the deal: Matt Houston plays Talon. Talon is the son of King Richard who gets killed by the evil Titus Cromwell so that Titus can take over Rich's kingdom. Talon has several siblings. One older brother is killed. He also had a sister and he may have had a younger brother, but I'm not about go to the instant replay a third time to confirm this. Talon escapes Titus and years later emerges as a great warrior who runs around the various kingdoms with his buddies from Murphy Brown. He comes back to his dad's old kingdom right about the time Prince Mikah and Princess Alana are planning their big rebellion to overthrow Titus. You would think that these would be Talon's younger siblings, but this is never brought up. In fact, Talon agrees to rescue Mikah after Titus captures him in exchange for a night of bumping and grinding with Alana! And Talon never bothers to figure out that as the oldest surviving heir, the throne is rightfully his! (You almost get the sense that Talon didn't ever realize he was back in his home country until he saw Titus up close and had a flashback.)
Most of that could be overlooked if any of the rest of the movie was any good. The problems though run the gamut, from the off-putting claustrophobic and cheap sets, to the decidedly small scale camera work (think "quickie TV movie, but with some boobies"), to the abysmally staged battle scenes (there's one incident involving a montage of Talon fighting guys and it shows him throwing dudes around over and over as well as some embarrassing leaping - all done in slow motion of course), to the annoying attempts of the musical store to sound epic and heroic but only managing to elicit a "low-grade parody" vibe.
You're also going to feel cheated if you come into this thinking that just because the sorcerer is half the title, that he's going to be half the movie. There's almost no sorcerer action in this movie. Titus uses a witch to resurrect the sorcerer at the beginning of the film to aid him in defeating King Richard's armies. Titus then stabs the sorcerer and throws him off a cliff. The extent of the sorcerer's activities for most of the movie consist of him assuming a human disguise. I never get why these super powerful creatures craving revenge on the mere mortals who hosed them earlier always seem to spend their time concocting elaborate revenge schemes instead of just using their powers to kill the guy. What was the sorcerer doing pretending to be Titus' military adviser when he had could make his fingers glow and pull someone's heart from their chest without even touching them?
Speaking of pointlessly complicating your life for the sake of dragging the movie out, what was the reason again for Titus forcing Princess Alana to marry him? He was already in control of the kingdom and reviled by all its inhabitants, so it wasn't going to legitimize his rule. I suppose it could have been a ruse to lure all his fellow kings to the wedding so that he could eliminate them all at once (that was the plan he tried to carry out), but if that's the case, why not just marry someone you want to and invite these people to that wedding? Why marry the gal who just kneed you in the balls in the previous scene? (Unless, there were some kind of subtleties to Titus' sex life that thankfully went over my head.)
Another question this movie raised that perhaps some of you who go to more weddings than I do, can answer: Is it in poor taste to have the ceremony carried out while there's guy crucified in the room? I would think that the bride would be irritated by that since this is her special day and she wants to be the center of everyone's attention and not have to compete with some shirtless guy writhing in agony on a cross. In any case, it all backfires on Titus, because even though Talon is nailed up to the cross, he manages to rip his hands free, nails and all, and escape. Now, why didn't Jesus do that? And what's with Mr. Pyun's fetish for crucifying his main characters? (See also Cyborg.)
Even though Matt Houston takes on both Titus and the sorcerer in a pair of battles at the end (his only beef with the sorcerer was that both he and the sorcerer wanted to kill Titus), this movie can't get to the end credits soon enough. Between Talon's lame three pronged sword, the awful effects employed when the sorcerer gets rid of his human identity (I'll never criticize computer generated effects again!), and the sluggish fight between Titus and Talon complete with colored sparks whenever their swords lazily banged into one another, your finger will be anxiously caressing the stop button on your remote control like it was some kind of home video rosary. The one good thing about this movie is that it did generate an honest to goodness scare at the very end of things. Talon had defeated the bad guys, there were some forced cheers for him and then the screen went black and the following words appeared on the screen: "Watch for Talon's new adventure Tales of the Ancient Empire coming soon." Even though that film has yet to materialize and The Sword And The Sorcerer came out way back in 1982, the thought that Albert is still out there making movies and probably has this thing in the back of his mind hangs over your head like a clunky three pronged sword.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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