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Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time: (Robert
Folk) You really have to wonder what original "Beastmaster" novelist
Andre Norton thinks of the wretched path this concept has taken through
theatres and cable television over a two-decade span. With the original
Beastmaster film (which was among the many fantasy adventure
follow-ups to the surprising popularity of
Conan the Barbarian)
enjoying a significant second life on cable television, it was decided
to haul a now aging Marc Singer into his title role on the big screen
once again in the early 1990's, hoping (successfully, as fate would have
it), that the film would rake in similar cash on cable. Halfway along
that road to rebirth (not to mention another sequel after this, and a
television series), the film stayed in the theatres just long enough to
receive an appropriately brutal slashing from critics, who didn't need
much intelligence to notice all the ways in which corners were cut to
meet a smaller production budget. In many ways,
Beastmaster 2
mirrored the "He-Man" film
Masters of the Universe in its
laughable failures: with no black paint to once again portray one of the
title character's animal companions as a panther, it's simply a tiger
this time around. And, like
Masters of the Universe, much of the
film is shot in modern America, with a "portal of time" introduced by a
witch played by Sarah Douglas (the evil superwoman of
Superman
II... maybe "He-Man"'s Meg Foster was too busy to make this one?),
giving ancient times the lovely threat of nuclear annihilation. Seeing
Singer run around Los Angeles in a loincloth is about as good as it gets
here, except, of course, for the usual overachieving score by composer
Robert Folk. Interestingly, Folk would produce for
Beastmaster 2
exactly what Bill Conti would provide for
Masters of the
Universe: a score that exceeds the film in quality to such a degree
that it sounds badly out of place.
Then again, Folk, whose career has been defined by
Police Academy and
Ace Ventura music, has seemingly always
tackled projects like this one (and half a dozen others) with such
energetic enthusiasm that his music is always worth a look apart from
the film. He had just completed
Toy Soldiers the same year, and
the two scores stand among his very best despite their awkward positions
in their pictures. Folk's work on
Beastmaster 2 is a little more
understandable, however; even the trashiest old-world adventure films of
the 1980's tried to compensate for their lameness by saving much of
their budgets for overwhelming scores. Despite composer Lee Holdridge's
abilities in overproducing in the genre, his music for the original
Beastmaster film would not be as well refined as his music a
decade later, and Folk chose to abandon Holdridge's themes for the
sequel. This is no great loss, for Folk has always been talented at the
art of catchy themes, and for
Beastmaster 2, he provides a
variety of standard, but well executed themes for the genre. More
memorable than his themes in his relentlessly powerful score are his
consistently rhythmic progressions, harmonic sensibilities, and wildly
orchestrated romp of a performance. Like Conti in
Masters of the
Universe, Folk never gives in to the temptation of inserting
modern-day music for the scenes in Los Angeles; the entire score for
Beastmaster 2 is a massive symphonic movement born from the ranks
of Basil Poledouris'
Conan the Barbarian and James Horner's
Krull. Always frenetic in its pace, Folk layers his music
wonderfully with several lines of action at once, never wasting the
opportunity to run each section of the ensemble over each other in
harmonious, but independent lines. As such,
Beastmaster 2 may not
have any singular, outstanding cues, but it consistently impresses from
start to finish with a spirited performance by the 96-member Berlin
orchestra. Out of print, the album is as difficult to find a decade
later as most of Folk's other pressed CDs, but it will not disappoint
despite the search.
**** Amazon.com Price Hunt: CD or Download
The insert includes a note from Folk about the score.
