1111-Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II

Film Year:  1989
Genre:  Fantasy, Adventure
Director:  Charles B. Griffith
Starring:  Mel Welles, Robert Jayne, David Carradine, Lana Clarkson, Sid Haig
MST Season:  11

The Movie

Every once in a while there is a great movie that is tainted by a subpar sequel:  Jaws, Rocky, I’d say Star Wars but that would be me presuming there was ever a great Star Wars movie…  Now I’m forcing myself to wonder if it’s possible to taint a bad movie with an even worse sequel.  I never thought the sequel to Wizards of the Lost Kingdom would stir up such contemplation but here we are.

As bad as the previous film was, it was ambitiously bad.  It had epic fail special effects, epic fail creativity, and an epic fail storyline. Suck all of that out of your movie and you get Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II, a lazy lump of a sequel if I ever saw one.  The movie tries to be absolutely nothing.  It doesn’t even try to be a sequel to the last movie.  There’s only a loose connection in the fantasy setting.

The storyline has three lords taking over the land, leading an overweight and lazy wizard to train Melvin from Tremors to be a new one in his stead.  They go on a Lord of the Rings lite quest where they meet fierce warriors like David Carradine, his belly-dancing wife, Diet Xena:  Warrior Princess, and some horny guy who disappears after being introduced and reappears in the final battle.  They march into the kingdoms searching for a magic sword to destroy the evil lords.

Something that’s almost equally charismatic and unsettling about this movie is it’s snark.  Characters are always cracking wise (well, they don’t really sound wise doing it) and acting in a goofy manner to keep some sort of personality in the picture.  It feels like nobody is taking this film seriously, and why should they?  Maybe if it were funnier it would be less painful to watch, but to give credit where credit is due this is probably the one aspect of the film that isn’t phoned in, so I’ll give it points for that.  Too bad it feels like a soft core porno.  And I’d think better of it if it were.

The Episode

The previous episode, the original Wizards of the Lost Kingdom, was one of the highlights of the relaunch season.  Following it up immediately with the “sequel” brings fierce expectations.  When I first watched Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II in the initial release I was disappointed.  I had hoped that distancing it from the previous episode would improve it’s value to me, and while some of the riffing stands out a little more, this one really doesn’t do it for me.  The movie itself offers up goofiness, and Jonah and the Bots run with it, however the film’s lack of caring about itself makes the entire thing feel monotonous.  For a movie what’s constantly being a smartass and a show that’s directing much sharper quips right back at it, this one is laborious.  I wish it weren’t the case, but I can’t work up any enthusiasm for it.

Probably the most noteworthy host segment of the bunch is the one where the snowball of a small season arc finally starts to make some sort of recognizable shape.  After a discussion with Pearl, Kinga decides her best attempt at boosting viewership to the new MST3K is a publicity stunt wedding between her and Jonah.  The most amusing aspect of this is that Jonah doesn’t even know about it even by the episode’s end, though it feels like just having a segment each episode building up this idea of Kinga and Jonah’s nuptials is a bit like stringing us on.  In the past MST would confine arcs like this to one episode, with the sole exception being the chase through time and space in season eight (and even those weren’t exactly leading anywhere).  On the plus side, Kinga’s megalomania has been one of my favorite attributes of her character and getting married to boost both her stature and ego is deliciously in line with her character.

Other host segments involve a rainy day in space (huh?), Jonah and the Bots making a training video for a fantasy world bartender, and Jonah trying to counteract this bad movie with good movie suggestions.  I didn’t really hate any of them, with the exception of the “You might be a bad wizard” Jeff Foxworthy parody, which is a lengthy run on a lame joke.  The Invention Exchange features GIF Notes (which is cute) and Punt Bunnies (which made me laugh).

Overall it’s painful for me to give this one such a lesser grade when I loved the previous episode so much, but as much as this movie is lesser of it’s predecessor so is this episode.  There are laughs, but the magic of the wizards just isn’t there.  Thank god there isn’t a Wizards of the Lost Kingdom III.

Average

The DVD and Blu-Ray

Wizards of the Lost Kingdom was made available in physical media form via Shout Factory's Season 11 collection, of which I own the #WeBroughtBackMST3K Collector's Edition which were rewards through through season 11's Kickstarter campaign.  The discs came with the option of DVD or blu-ray, of which I optioned the blu-ray.  The video and audio are both fantastic, while I imagine the DVD's look great in standard definition.  There are no extras, however it shares a disc with the following episode, Carnival Magic.