Maax. The Beastmaster (1982)
A sword-and-sorcery fantasy about a young man's search for revenge. Armed with supernatural powers, the handsome hero and his animal allies wage war against marauding forces.
Released the same year as the far more successful Conan the Barbarian, this movie did languish a bit in the polls. It suffered from having a far less macho protagonist... which - believe it or not - is a bit of a consideration in a movie genre in which the protagonist generally wears little more than a loincloth and a scowl.
It also suffered from being just plain awful.
The hero, Dar (played by Marc Singer) had beasts under his control. One of which was a black panther. Because panthers were apparently difficult to get, they dyed a tiger black.
I'm just amazed they used the theme song they did for the movie, and didn't just slightly modify Survivor's hit "Eye of the Tiger". I mean, it was also released in 1982.
It's the dye of the tiger
It's the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival!
Anyway, I digress.
The villain is Maax. Played by Rip Torn. That's like 'Max', but with a drawl. Maaaaaax is a priest, and he's been told that...
Well, prophecy, prophecy, prophecy... kill lots of folk to avoid the prophecy... oops, missed someone... aaand... well, you know how all of this goes.
Dar is the young boy who was supposed to be killed. Dar is essentially going to bring about the prophecy, and Maaaaaaaaaaaax doesn't want him to. That's about the extent of what you need to know.
When Dar sees his adopted family killed by Maaaaaaaax's barbarian Jun, he gets very cross indeed. He decides to go avenge them, and in the process bumps into an attractive slave girl called Kiri, get jumped by weird half-bird, half-human creatures who dissolve their prey for food, and it all gets a bit hectic.
Meanwhile Maaaaax is sacrificing townsfolk to his god, Ar, (the god of pirates?) primarily because he's supposed to be the villain, and we need periodic reminders.
The final battle between Dar and Maaaaaaaax goes down much as you'd expect, until a ferret basically pushes the priest into Ar's sacrificial flames. Dar then sets about murdering all the Jun with fire.
All in all, a pleasant, friendly movie all about huggy bunnies and people being nice to each other, as you can imagine.
The movie received mixed reviews, including the following from the Chicago Tribune:
"[The Movie] isn't bad as much as it is overlong. After one of the film's major bad guys has been bumped off, the film inexplicably goes on for another 20 minutes. In this sort of brainless adventure film, one climax is enough."
That's probably fair, to be honest. If you want to watch the movie, you can catch it here: https://youtu.be/qCdVs7Ppte4