Prisoners Of The Lost Universe

It took me a while to get into Prisoners of the Lost Universe. It's so fraught with cliches, unimpressive writing, bad dialogue, and stupid sound effects that until the fun of the real action kicked in I was just bored.

I guess this is best described as a fantasy flick with a little sci-fi thrown in to get us started. The main characters, Dan, Carrie, and Dr. Hartmann are from our world. The doctor has created a machine that can transport things to another dimension - a parallel world where swords and horses are in use and firearms are considered magical.

Not all of the explanations hold up. For example, time supposedly moves faster here so why are they so far behind our technology? Besides that it's presumably parallel Earth, but some of the inhabitants aren't exactly human. Luckily their language (I forget what they called it exactly) is the same as English.

When Dan and Carrie get zapped into this realm they discover the professor has already been there some time (the whole time at different speeds thing I mentioned) and is nowhere to be found. As they search for him hoping for a way home Carrie is nabbed by the ruling warlord played by John Saxon. Naturally this strange woman is the most beautiful he's ever seen. Aren't they always in these stories? I'll grant that Kay Lenz is pretty hot, but the gal the warlord already has is no cow either. I guess it's some kind of social status thing. He calls the slave girl a “halfbreed,” but we never find out the details of exactly what this means in their society.

Where was I? Oh, yes, Carrie is in the hands of the warlord and Dan sets out to save her. Dan is a normal blue collar worker except that he has some Martial Arts training (set up in the story by Dan talking about competing with his Kendo sword and shown in Richard Hatch's moves). He's no Chuck Norris, but he's handy with a sword and definitely has some style to his moves (which is actually what helped me finally start getting into the movie as it went on). Unfortunately, John Saxon (who has done some fighting along side Bruce Lee) and Hatch never face off in a real hand to hand battle which could have been enjoyable.

I keep getting sidetracked. Back to the plot. Dan is out to save Carrie and manages to assemble a motley crew to help him including an alien looking ranger type of guy, a short thief who is the primary source of comic relief, and a mindless giant. He also makes plenty of enemies along the way in this savage land and that doesn't even include the warlord's lackeys.

It's the facing off against these enemies that finally makes the movie fun. There is some conflict early on, but the goofy costuming makes some of that hard to watch. Dan likes to complain and cuss a lot initially which made me not like him too much at first. He finally steps up to be the hero which improved his scenes a lot.

Another problem is the sound effects. This is not a comedy though it is mostly light-hearted and has plenty of comic relief. The sound effects though sound like something out of a cartoon. They can be annoying and frequently pull me out of the movie. Along with that, the sci-fi elements at the beginning look painfully low-budget so getting away from that helps as the movie moves along.

Along the same lines of the look the production design team seems to have tried so hard to make things look alien that they really only succeeded in making it look goofy. I guess they wanted to add more of a fantasy element but didn't have what it took to make it look good.

MORALITY:

There is some bloody violence – more of a PG13 than R rated level (the movie itself is unrated), nothing too graphic or gory.

Sexuality is mild. One of the guys tries to molest Carrie, and the warlord clearly has desired for her, but it's never really overt. Kay strips off for a dip in a pond, but we don't see anything.

There is plenty of strong language throughout with several religious slurs in the mix.

SPIRITUALITY:

It's easy to see this is more of a representation than a realistic struggle. Dan is the everyman, an unremarkable laborer except that he has enough training to stand up for himself. Even that, though, is not unattainable for many people. Special forces training is something most people will never have access to, but Martial Arts schools are common.

Dan's not a man with extraordinary moral standing, he's just a guy that doesn't want to see anything bad happen to his friends which is something to which most viewers would be able to relate.

He opposes an oppressive leader who takes what he wants at the expense of others. He doesn't care how it affects anyone even though it's usually harmful to someone. He wears his sins on his sleeve and does nothing that doesn't serve himself in some way. This is the kind of guy we see from a distance in third-world dictatorships but not the kind we're likely to run across in our everyday lives.

It's that struggle of the everyman against clearly evil oppression that offers any appeal here. It's not necessarily spiritual except that the desire to be free of such oppression is common in the spirit of mankind.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This is not a great movie unless you enjoy B-grade sci-fi/fantasy. I eventually did find myself enjoying it thanks to some of the action and some of the heroic stands against tyranny. Check it out if you like that sort of thing but only if it doesn't take a lot of effort to find.

#PrisonersOfTheLostUniverse