Kull The Conqueror

Herculean TV star Kevin Sorbo takes his chiseled good looks and Charlton Heston-styled enunciation to the big screen in this Conan the Barbarian wanna-be. The result is on a par with The Beastmaster and Arnold's loincloth adventures, though the film gets a big boost from its intentional and unintentional camp and a pair of exotic babes who are obviously slumming for the paycheck.

The plot is your basic swords-and-sorcerer mumbo-jumbo with Sorbo as Kull, a medieval Horatio Alger who rises from the rank of barbarian to king by means of his brawn. He's enchanted by the court's tarot-reading tart (a scrumptious Karina Lombard) but falls for Tia Carrere's bad red dye job. Her steamy seductress is actually a 3000-year-old witch out to dupe Kull and place mankind under a rule of eternal darkness. Sorbo takes his role with the same grain of salt he sprinkles on Hercules, and Lombard and Carrere make for sexy accouterments. But the real entertainment value comes from the over-the-top, flute/heavy-metal soundtrack and Harvey Fierstein as a slimy seaside merchant who hates the smell of fish. At the Copley Place, the Fresh Pond, and the Circle and in the suburbs.

-- Tom Meek