Remember New Coke?  How about Crystal Pepsi?  Well, this flick is kinda like those bad corporate ideas.

Here's
the deal; a rather pissed-off bitch of an alien called The Beast is
tooling around the stars looking for planets to "enslave" when he runs
across a system called Krull.  Swords vs. laser adventure ensues.

Now, before I get started, read this part carefully:

I AM NOT RECOMMENDING THIS MOVIE!! 

I
like this movie a lot, but I also like big-tittie porn and Adrian Belew
records.  Let's start there.  The opening shots of The
Beast's rock (with engines) floats past the camera like early animatics
for an Imperial Cruiser.  Basicaly saying to the audience
"Yes!  We're ripping off Star Wars! "  And just to
drive the point home, James Horner's score comes on like a drunken frat
brat.  I swear, the first five minutes of this movie come
dangerously close to date-rape (don't ask me how I know that one
either).  The giant rock then lands on a lush, green planet that
we will come to discover is Krull.

Here's where it get's a little
sticky.  The Beast's henchmen, called Slayers, exit the rock to
take over the planet.  On horseback.  Yeah, horseback. 
So, this fucker's riding hither and yon on an intergalactic mission
from hell and he gives his boys fucking horses.  And laser spears
that fire once, and then have to be turned around and used as 
swords.  Darth fucking Vader, he ain't.  (As a side note: the
movie goes out it's way to explain how The Beast is going to enslave
the planet, but doesn't ever address to what end he needs a planetful
of slaves.  I mean, at least Storm Troopers were building some
shit, right?)

Turns out Krull is inhabited by the super-hot
Lysette Anthony and disturbingly gay-looking Ken Marshall (he's in
Spandex for the whole movie).  Their marriage will unite the
people of Krull and repell The Beast!  Not so much.  In the
middle of the ceremony, The Slayers crash the party and nab Lysette
'cause apparently The beast has a mean hard-on for her and no way to
self-flagelate (hey, I'd be pissed off too).  The Slayers take
this fine peice of ass back to the rock where The Beast sits on her for
a few days, all the while begging her to come off some ass.  Ken
is, in the meantime, whipping up a posse and going on the hunt for this
motherfucker so's he can get freaky before The Beat goes all long-dong
and Lysette decides not to go back.  Got all that?

This was
another of those HBO staples that I never missed, and I'll tell you
why: the Glaive.  The Glaive is this movie's Old Painless. 
The only difference being that Ken has to pull it out of a river of
lava.  For those of you who've never seen this flick, The Glaive
is basically a ninja throwing star on massive fucking steroids. 
It's got blades that Fred Kreuger would be proud of and the ability to
fly at the will of its master.  Yeah, baby, I wanted one badly. 

There are some cats over at IMDB that seem to feel as though this movie has no debt to Star Wars,
and they're fucking wrong.  Shall we count the ways?  How
about Freddie Jones as the mystical old man from the mountains? 
Obi Wan.  Ken Marshall's a pussy who becomes manly. 
Luke.  Lysette Anthony is a fucking princess for Christ's sake.

Now,
if you can get past all of that and take the movie for what it is, it's
a cool flick.  I love the scene where Liam Neeson and company are
pressganged into service. We get what is perhaps the best description
of fame I've ever heard.  I love the Cyclops' sub-plot and the
whole fire-mares thing is cool as shit.  Essentially, this movie
boils down to this; they ripped off Star Wars, no doubt about
it.  But, if you're gonna rip something off, don't you want to rip
off the best?  I mean, they could've tried to go after Howard the Duck, right?  So, give it a shot, but don't say I didn't warn you.

'Nuff Sugar