An evil cult leader named Maax (Rip Torn) is freaked out about a prophecy surrounding the King's unborn son so he tries to have the baby killed. But a villager saves the boy and raises him as his own. The boy is named Dar and grows into Marc Singer with the ability to communicate with animals. When Dar's village is raided and all of the villagers killed, he sets out to get revenge on the one responsible -- Maax. Along the way, he is joined by John Amos, sexy Tanya Roberts, and some furry friends.
As with most sword & sorcery movies from the '80s, this bears more than a few similarities to Conan the Barbarian. Obviously it's not as good but the inspiration is clearly there. Beastmaster is very cheesy and hard to take seriously. I mean, at the end of the day, "guy who talks to ferrets" is a difficult concept to make work as anything other than a punchline. It's also overlong and full of poorly choreographed action scenes. For his part, Marc Singer does fine and knows when to play it tongue-in-cheek and when not to. Rip Torn is a total ham as the villain. Tanya Roberts actually takes her role seriously, which is embarrassing for her but fun for us. She looks great, of course.
So yeah it's cheesy and laughable but it's also entertaining. You can shut your mind off and enjoy it as a simple fantasy adventure flick or you can spend a couple of hours poking fun at it. One question I had while watching is why did Dar never try to talk to the horses of the bad guys and make them stop? In the village raid scene and the climax, the bad guys are all on horses and yet the guy who communicates with animals makes no effort to use that to his advantage. Anyway, it's a good way to pass the time. Followed by two terrible sequels and a forgettable TV series.
As with most sword & sorcery movies from the '80s, this bears more than a few similarities to Conan the Barbarian. Obviously it's not as good but the inspiration is clearly there. Beastmaster is very cheesy and hard to take seriously. I mean, at the end of the day, "guy who talks to ferrets" is a difficult concept to make work as anything other than a punchline. It's also overlong and full of poorly choreographed action scenes. For his part, Marc Singer does fine and knows when to play it tongue-in-cheek and when not to. Rip Torn is a total ham as the villain. Tanya Roberts actually takes her role seriously, which is embarrassing for her but fun for us. She looks great, of course.
So yeah it's cheesy and laughable but it's also entertaining. You can shut your mind off and enjoy it as a simple fantasy adventure flick or you can spend a couple of hours poking fun at it. One question I had while watching is why did Dar never try to talk to the horses of the bad guys and make them stop? In the village raid scene and the climax, the bad guys are all on horses and yet the guy who communicates with animals makes no effort to use that to his advantage. Anyway, it's a good way to pass the time. Followed by two terrible sequels and a forgettable TV series.