As the infant Dar (Singer) grows into strapping manhood, he learns he can communicate with animals and that he possesses the instincts of a warrior. Nonetheless, he can't prevent his village from being destroyed by Jun marauders. Girded with his dead foster-father's sword and stripped to the waist, he embarks on a quest of revenge.
Along the way he assembles a coterie of animal friends: a black panther, two ferrets skilled in burglary, and an eagle. He also meets Kiri (Roberts), a slave of Maax's temple. Bent on rescuing her, Dar follows her back to the city of Arak, where Maax is busy sacrificing toddlers. Enraged, Dar gets the eagle to bear away one of the children, revealing his talent to Maax.
Escaping the city, Dar meets Seth (Amos) and his charge Tal, son of the imprisoned king and the cousin of Kiri, who is now slated for sacrifice herself. Seth and Dar rescue Kiri and then, braving the sorcery of the temple, they save the blinded and embittered king as well.
The ungrateful king casts Dar out as a freak and foolishly orders an immediate attack, which fails completely. Dar must now save everyone from Maax's clutches in time to defend the city from the merciless Jun hordes.
The long, hard road to Arak
The Beastmaster is now something of a legend. It was overplayed on cable for so long that it wore a place for itself in the cultural consciousness. Watching the film, however, is like sinking into the quicksand Dar tumbles into early on. Unlike Dar, who is rescued by the ferrets (don't ask), unwary viewers may find there is no escape.
Singer does what's required of him, which is to look simultaneously earnest and buff. Thanks to a river-bathing scene, there are also some in-the-buff shots of Tanya Roberts, but there have to be far better roads to titillation than enduring her performance (People magazine once called her perhaps the sixth best actress ever to play one of Charlie's Angels). Rip Torn is the acting standout, able to convey more with an arched eyebrow than Singer communicates in this film, the two maligned sequels, and all of V besides.
Nonetheless, The Beastmaster has a certain appeal. Yes, it's interminable, thanks to an unfocused plot and four shots too many of ferret derring-do. It's inconsistently edited and sluggishly directed, though generally well photographed (by cinematographer John Alcott). The theme, startlingly, seems ripped off from Battlestar: Galactica. The dialogue is both hackneyed and awkward.
Yet for all of that, the central premise of a lone survivor living in the wild, able to commune with beasts and hungry for revenge, is eerie and compelling. (In fact, this is the only shred left of the novel The Beast Master by Andre Norton, which the film was loosely based on. Norton wisely disassociated herself from the motion picture project.) This core concept, combined with occasionally evocative exteriors and a lively appreciation of Torn, is just enough to sustain determined and patient viewers through the 119 minutes of this film.
Roberts is now in the cast of That '70s Show, where I like to think that her rudimentary acting skills are part of the charm of her bubbleheaded character. At last, she has found her milieu. -- Mark
