at first glance , i thought that the sword and the sorceror had promise . 
its plotline goes like this : the evil king cromwell , desiring to take over the world , resurrects an evil , ancient sorceror , xusia for power . 
he attacks the kingdom of eh-dan and kills young prince talon's parents . 
given a triple-bladed sword ( which can shoot bad guys , like a gun ) by his dying father , talon vows for revenge . 
eleven years later , when he's established his own army , the mercaneries , he vows to take back his kingdom . 
along the way , he meets up with alana , whose village is attacked by drunken guards and her brother is kidnapped by cromwell . 
talon vows to help , and , after a series of minor escapades , eventually ends up rescuing alana's brother ( and several other prisoners ) , only to be captured himself ( in other words , put on a cross to be crucified ! ) . 
fortunately he frees himself , rescues alana from marrying cromwell , defeats xusia , and then cromwell , all with his triple bladed sword ( during the final battle , the blade breaks , but talon finishes cromwell off by using a hidden dagger in the blade ) . 
then , everything ends happily . 
unfortunately , the sword and the sorcerer is not even half as good as it sounds . 
what would have been a great film is completely destroyed by uneven plot jumping , bad acting , and gruesomely gory , bloody scenes . 
never once does the story seem to connect together , it just jumps around repeatedly . 
this problem is extremely noticeable in the opening scene where cromwell resurrects xusia . 
after telling him that he needs his help , he leads the warlock out into daylight , but then stabs him and sends him careening off a cliff afterwards . 
wait a minute , didn't the plotline say that he needs the help of xusia in order to invade eh-dan , which he cannot do by military force ? 
if that is the case , why does he dispose of xusia after resurrecting him ? 
and why does he manage to take over eh-dan anyway ? 
these questions are just never - no , never - answered in the film . 
another example is that one moment we see talon fighting for his life , another moment we see him just about to be crucified during alana's wedding to cromwell ( ! ) , and finally at the end , instead of settling down with alana , he just tells her to " wait " , and then he just rides off ! 
in addition to the extremely bloody scenes , this uneven plot jumping completely destroys what would have been a great fantasy adventure . 
even some attempts to make it exciting , a few fire scenes , battle scenes , don't work . 
it just completely fails altogether miserably . 
the only good thing about this film is its musical score , contributed by david whittaker , who had an ( extremely ) short music composing career . 
the score is boomy and adventurous , powerful , and a billion times better than this film is . 
my suggestion : steer the hell away from this bloody mess and buy the soundtrack album instead ( if you can find it ) . 
ironically , though , before the film's credits roll , there is a message indicating that a sequel , tales of the ancient empire , would follow . 
to my relief ( and delight ) , it never got into production , because the sword and the sorcerer laid an egg at the box office , grossing only $39 million . 
critics were right on in slamming the sword and the sorcerer , all right . 
leonard maltin rightfully called it " second rate in scripting , and acting " and at-a-glance film reviews called it " a confusing , stupid , unimaginative , unengaging , bloodfilled bore " . 
i totally agree with these reviews , all right , and i hope that this piece of #$% ! 
will be forgotten about . 
there are far better fantasy movies than the sword and the sorcerer . 
i hope you get a good laugh out of this review , but i am not laughing . 
in fact , my insults don't even come close to the gruesome sickness that this film gave me throughout its 100 minute running time . 


Sentiment: neg