When the ageing but warlike king of “Valusia” decides to do away with many of those who could be heirs to his kingdom, it takes all the strength of the brave “Kull” (Kevin Sorbo) to stop him. In return, the now ailing “Borna” decides to name him his successor! This goes down like a lead balloon with the now circumvented “Prince Ducalon” (Dougie Henshall) and the general “Talibaro” (Thomas Ian Griffith) who promptly plot to be rid of the man they see as a usurper. To that end, they decide on the distinctly dangerous practise of resurrecting the long dead and profoundly evil “Queen Akivasha” (Tia Carrere) who just happens to make Medusa look like Julie Andrews. Of course, once she has air back in her lungs, she imposes her own agenda and soon it falls to “Kull” to try to thwart her attempts to rebuild her long lost empire and… yep, you’ve guessed… rule the world! Some creative effort has gone into the visual effects, and there are plenty of set-piece combat scenes, but the rest of this just reminds you of a dodgy and poorly lit television movie filmed almost entirely on a sound stage and completely devoid of any jeopardy or peril. Sorbo has some charism as “Hercules” (1995) but here, there’s simply no room for that as the story evolves, peplum-style, for ninety minutes that had me looking to watch “Krull” instead. My money was on “Akivasha”.
