Fantasy Flix: Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1992)

Friday, February 3, 2012

Barbarian Queen II: The Empress Strikes Back (1992)

Director: Joe Finley
Writers: Howard R. Cohen, Lance Smith

In a final and epic battle in the thrilling sequel to the now classic "Barbarian Queen", Althalia, leads a revolt of peasants and female warriors against the wicked ruler, Arkaris, to regain her throne.

I previously related to you how I quite enjoyed the original Barbarian Queen. Well, I think I liked that one about as much as I dislike this one. Barbarian Queen II has absolutely nothing to do with the original movie. The only thing it has in common is the main actress Lana Clarkson, who doesn't even play the same character.

This movie is missing so much that made the original enjoyable for me. First, It's lacking the fun of the first. This movie seems to try to take itself more seriously, with a smaller budget.

Second, the action scenes are terrible. The first movies action scenes were not good, but this one just seems worse. They don't even try to hide the fact that the sword fights are done with plastic swords with no effects for realism.

Third, while there is nudity in this movie, there isn't nearly as much as the first. This film could be quickly edited for television and appear on Syfy with just a few scenes clipped.

The acting is on par with the first, maybe even a bit better in places. I'm not saying that it's good in the least, just decent. A real standout for me, however was Cecilia Tijerina, who plays a pretty excellent little brat. Elizabeth A. Jaeger is cute is hell and I'm really sad she only made two movies.

Overall, this is your standard 80's/90's fantasy fair along with the first. But this definitely does not live up to the first movie, which in itself isn't very good.