Movie Review: The last 30 Minutes of KRULL

Colwyn. Lyssa. Ynyr. Torquil. Ergo. Kegan. The Seer. Titch. Turold. Eirig. Vella. Bardolph. Oswyn. Rhun. Merith. Nennog. Darro. Quain. Menno. Rell the Cyclops.

These will be the names my children bear. I think my first child will be named Peter Yates, as tribute to the director of KRULL, the most awesome filmic journey of all time.

At least the last 30 minutes of it that I caught.

I’m not sure I even really watched a movie tonight. I might have gotten food poisoning, and in my sick and delirious state, went to the back yard and ate a batch of wild mushrooms. An event such as this surely was surely foreplay to the conception of KRULL.

This is one of the films Father Time forgot, most likely because Liam Neeson paid him off. That’s right, not only Liam Neeson was in this film, but also Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid), David Battley (Mr. Turkentine, the guy who sells candy in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), and just about every other British character actor you’ve ever seen.

What, other than the amazing cast, made me sit down to watch the last half hour of this film, riveted? First of all, the synopsis offered by On Demand cable—“A prince needs a razor-tipped boomerang to free his beloved from the fortress of the Beast.”

You couldn’t stop me from seeing this movie if you had a herd of flaming Clydesdales and a thousand storm troopers with laser guns.

Which KRULL, in fact, has.

This film felt like it was created by the same minds that spawned “Legend” with Tom Cruise and Tim Curry—again, star studded cast, crazy set design and images, but the finished product makes you feel like you stepped into the middle of a movie that has already been running for a few hours.

Which, with KRULL, is what I did.

I think it was the old albino shape shifter being killed by a Cyclops with a triton that stopped me from changing the channel.

Moments later, David Battley held my attention by changing into a beagle puppy (for no particular reason) in one of the worst examples of green screen ever seen.

From what I gathered, a rag-tag band of sword/axe/triton/razor-tipped boomerang-wielding men/boys/Cyclops/shape-shifters is in search of a mysterious iron castle that changes locations periodically. In it, a huge beast that resembles Swamp Thing keeps a princess with crazy red hair in a prison that looks like a vagina with teeth.

They get the next location of the roving castle from a woman who used to date a member of the band. Currently, she’s living in the middle of a giant white spider’s nest, where she has aged several times faster than her beau. She gives the member of the group the location, only after informing him that 1) they had a baby, 2) she killed it at birth, 3) He’ll die soon after leaving the spider’s nest.

He smiles and caresses her face.

After this, he dies, and the group decides they can only reach the castle in time if they steal a bunch of fire horses, depicted in this film by Clydesdales whose hooves are on fire (I believe I missed a "no animals were harmed in the making of this film" placard at the end of the feature for a reason). They run through the air like Santa's flaming reindeer. The Clydesdales drop our friends off at the castle, where the warriors are soon pinned down by laser fire from storm troopers at the castle gates. The Cyclops, wielding his triton, arrives at the last minute on a flaming Clydesdale to save the day, only to be crushed soon thereafter by a giant rock wall.

I pause now to point out that I am not making this up, and that I am stone-cold sober.

The prince throws his boomerang, which looks like a jewel-encrusted starfish with switch blades attached to it, at the fleshy wall of the chamber that holds his princess. It spins in the air like a buzz saw for about two minutes as it carefully saws a hole, and we cut to various cohorts dying by laser fire and castle booby traps. The prince fights with Swamp Thing/"The Beast," only to lose his boomerang when it becomes stuck in Swamp Thing’s chest.

Swamp Thing isn’t dead, and the prince gets nervous. The princess holds out her hand, which is now on fire (is she part Clydesdale?), and the prince holds it, taking her as his wife. Now his hand is on fire. A huge pillar of fire shoots out of his outstretched hand and defeats swamp thing. The castle starts to crumble in a mess of miniatures and particle board, so the group runs away.

We blast out of the castle with our fire-hands, and find ourselves in a giant meadow, where the castle is torn out of the ground and into the sky with fireworks and much gnashing of teeth.

A booming voiceover declares that the prince and princess marry and become king and queen of the world. A sequel is hinted at, because the voice also tells us that their son will rule not just the world, but the galaxy.

Drugs are for suckers. The last half hour of KRULL has expanded my mind more than any psychedelic ever could.