Word: beast
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Fearing such an impulse as "mere anarchy," W.B. Yeats foresaw a Second Coming not long before 1923, in which the world would be devoured by a "rough beast." Yet the impulse was not necessarily anarchic, although things could turn out that way. It was the dream of self-fulfillment. As a goal, self-fulfillment was hardly the 20th century's invention. The European Romantics of the early 1800s had loudly proclaimed the primacy of the individual, the glories of revolution and similar disruptive ideas that have carried forward, with a few halts and alterations, from their time to ours...
...massive push-me-pull-you, an 11-man beast that doesn't know quite where it's going. It's the Harvard football offense, and something is desperately wrong...
...Franz spins. A laborer and part-time pimp who has just been released from prison after serving four years for beating a girlfriend to death, Franz has few resources of intelligence or nobility upon which to build a decent new life. He is dull and heavy, a Zolaesque human beast, but less a villain than a big lug. His attention span is so short he cannot even hold a grudge. He feels no remorse for the wrong he has done, no vengeance toward those who have wronged him. His life is determined by forces-of personality, of society, of fate...
...hero: Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall), risking his world to save the flame-tressed Lyssa (Lysette Anthony). His hearty crew: a wizened wizard named Ynyr (Freddie Jones), a sad-faced Cyclops (Bernard Bresslaw), the scabrous brigand Torquil (Alun Armstrong) and Ergo, the inept conjurer (David Battley). The villain: a reptilian Beast who looks like the Alien from the Black Lagoon...
...keep Screenwriter Stanford Sherman and Director Peter Yates out of plagiarism court. Like the cycle's earlier entries, Krull offers battles, special effects and a hero and heroine with all the humanity of furniture on feet. But there are ingenuities of décor and character here. The Beast's fortress contains vaulted corridors that resemble a vulture's rib cage; his lair is a rococo igloo; walls close in on Lyssa like giant pillows. The senior good guys, notably Ynyr and Cyclops, move with a certain sad majesty. The Cyclops' knowing wink...