Starring: Ben Pullen, Charlotte Comer, Peter O'Farrell, Cameron Rhodes, Todd Rippon,  Desmond Kelly, Michael Wilson   

 Written by: Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel   Directed by: Mark Ezra, Terry Marcel

The Story:

After Darkest Knight made its appearance in the Inferno, a young reader emailed me a little upset that I had poked a little fun at a show he liked. Well, if that young person is reading this I want tell him (or her, I can't remember right now) that I've enjoyed watching it yet again in this disk, "Fantasy Quest". Yes, Fantasy Quest is not a movie, its more episodes of Darkest Knight (if that was the shows real name, I'm not sure) cobbled together to look like a movie. Its corny and its hokey and the FX are nothing to write home about, but it is fun to watch in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

Ivanhoe is back! Sir Walter Scott is still spinning in his grave, because the brave knight is having adventures Scott never imagined. With his sidekicks Rebecca and Odo he's busy trying to get the ransom for King Richard who was imprisoned after the crusades and defeat the evil plots of Prince John the usurper and the wizard Mordor. The first story involves Ivanhoe's friend, the priest Friar Bacon. Bacon answers a plea from his friend, an abbot a nearby monastery. The orders historian has found an ancient game created by the Roman Emperor Titus in hidden catacombs beneath the monk's citadel. The winner of this magical game will gain control of the Dalrok, a powerful demon. But if you play and lose the Dalrok gets your soul. No golden fiddle here. What Bacon doesn't suspect at first is that Mordor has set things up so that Bacon unwittingly becomes ensnared in this board game that will play on even if you quit. Naturally, Bacon sends for his friend, Butt kicker Supreme, Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe and Rebecca quickly realize that a monk or monks at the monastery are involved in some sort of evil plan. One of them, Brother Luke has seemingly turned evil and wants the power of the Dalrok himself. Even after he's imprisoned he escapes with the secret aid of Mordor and another monk, Brother Alburn. Ivanhoe gets Odo to pose as a traveling Irish monk to spy on the others.

To be honest, the first story is a bit boring in parts. Its mostly Ivanhoe and Rebecca searching a labyrinth beneath the citadel trying to find Luke and the game. Odo manages to worm his way into Luke's confidence by pretending to serve him, but as usual, Odo is comic relief really. The Dalrok is computer generated, and well, its not a Gollum Quality animation if you know what I mean. I don't know how many episodes of this show were really made, but I have to wonder why they picked this one. there have to a few more exciting ones that would have been better for this disk.

The second tale doesn't involve Mordor or Prince John. Odo hides in a swamp after fooling around with the wife of a coffin maker in a nearby village. The coffin maker is quite naturally out for his head. But in the swamp Odo becomes possessed by a wraith that threatens to kill him if Ivanhoe doesn't retrieve the seal of Sanjolay, a magical item that will allow the evil spirit to live again. For this task Ivanhoe goes to see the druid Fingal, (whom he met in the first episodes) for help. Fingal just happens to be entertaining Friar Bacon in his druid Bat-Cave when Ivanhoe pops in. (Bacon and Fingal are having a debate on Science vs. Magic....interesting really, since obviously Fingal has some REAL magic powers, like the ability to teleport!) Fingal tells Ivanhoe he has to seek out the mountain spirit, Higg, in order to get the seal, but Higg will make him g through a series of trials before releasing it. While Ivanhoe sees to this alone, Rebecca has her hands full trying to keep the wraith from harming others while it possesses Odo. A task at which she fails, but not because she does anything wrong. Odo himself tries to use the wraith's power to his own advantage, but all he causes is for the wraith to infect the village with a deadly plague.

Its interesting that this show uses devices like peasants fearing the plague, something that was an all too real fear in medieval times, with fantasy elements from left field like druidic magical powers along with elements of Christianity. Bacon is a friar and one of Ivanhoe's closest friends, yet so is Fingal and he's as far as the show goes a Dungeons and Dragons type of druid. (As opposed to a real druid in medieval Europe that didn't really have magical powers). Especially since the backdrop is the aftermath of Richard's crusade and imprisonment in Austria (real history) and the hero is Ivanhoe (fictional character). I'd like to see the entire run of the series just to see if they ever resolved all of these things before it was cancelled.(To be honest, I don't know if it was cancelled. A reader emailed me and said that they watched the show in Australia. I've never seen it aired in the US).

Still, I can see why it may not have been. it is a cheesy program. Ben Pullen as Ivanhoe doesn't have a lot of charisma. He's kind of wooden, but I think its more the way the character is written. Ivanhoe doesn't get much to say except for stating the obvious, so he comes off as a man without a personality. It looks like he's lightened up a bit in this disk, but not much. Both the wraith and the Dalrok look like their animation was pulled straight from an X-box game and plopped into the film so the FX weren't going to garner any awards. And since this is a show that children would probably watch there isn't a lot of blood, even when Ivanhoe hacks an opponent with his sword. The sets look like the entire series was filmed on the grounds of a renaissance faire....kind of like Quest of the Delta Knights was. (I received an email from a person that performed as an extra in QoTDK and they confirmed that it was indeed shot on a faire ground!) One thing that puzzled me though is this....in the first episodes Odo was made out to be a wizard himself. He turned himself invisible at one point! But in these episodes he looks to have lost those talents. He never uses any magic of his own and at least he's not tossing magic eggs anymore. But it only begs the question of why Rebecca and Ivanhoe put up with him. (Ivanhoe doesn't seem to like Odo at all).

If you like corny shows like this you might want to check it out. But I suspect that the DVD is under several different names. The distributors deliberately named it "Fantasy Quest" in order to disguise the fact that its really a TV show.....I've heard that it might also be called "Darkest knight II". I'm not surprised though....with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy raking in cash any sword and sorcery type of movie or DVD is bound to make a release to ride out the popularity while it lasts. Oh, come on, Droogs, you didn't think that King Arthur, Troy and Alexander all came out recently despite of The Rings trilogy?

Best Lines:  “Men rule this land, not women....women are weak, romantic....you wouldn't last long with her."- Ivanhoe tells the wraith that possessing Rebecca isn't a good idea. Funny that he says that after Rebecca has recently beaten up a bar full of thugs unarmed. If she's weak and romantic I'd hate to face a really mean medieval woman.

 Are you kidding me?

1.) Mordor is one of those "elaborate plan" bad guys. He concocts this convoluted plan to get rid of Ivanhoe and Friar Bacon using some monks and an ancient demon infested game. Wouldn't a few guys with crossbows be cheaper and easier? when will the bad guys ever learn? Complicated traps never work against heroes! Villains have got to stop going to the Rube Goldberg school of deadly plots.

2.) Yowza! When fighting the Dalrok, Ivanhoe heaves a boulder at the demon. He must have had his Wheaties, because its a farkin'' good sized chunk of rock. It has to weigh at least several hundred pounds, but Ivanhoe lifts it over his head with minimal effort. I guess that rules out any little Ivanhoe's in the future because if he doesn't have a hernia after that he truly is invincible! Think I'm kidding, go find a rock that's about the size of a n average nightstand and try and lift it. I'll send you a card while you're in the hospital getting your balls untwisted.

3.) Ain't cooperation grand? Friar Bacon and Fingal the Druid are having a discussion over science vs. magic. Here I was under the impression that a medieval priest would be more likely to burn a druid at the stake then debate with him. Then again, Fingal does use real magic. I'm surprised he didn't do his little teleportation trick and tell Bacon "Lets see your wussy science do that, Captain Kirk!"!

4.) In the first...uh...movie...."Darkest Knight"...which is really the first few episodes of this TV series, Rebecca tells Ivanhoe that its not always necessary to kill someone to beat them. (She proves this by using "Wench-Fu" on a few ruffians. Apparently Ivanhoe disagrees because in this, er, movie....when he's confronted by several bandits on the road he kills all of them. Not that he was wrong....after all they did intend to kill and/or rob him, but you can see that the idea of mercy wasn't even in the ballpark when he slices these guys up.

5.) When Ivanhoe faces the first trial of the mountain spirit Higg, he must fight a deadly warrior. Instead of landing his fatal blow, Ivanhoe cries out to Higg "You want me to kill again, Higg!? Like I did in the crusades? I'm no murderer!"  and refuses to kill the warrior. Yet just before he killed about 6 guys on the road and didn't feel too badly about it! Whats the difference? The bandits attacked him so he snuffed them. This warrior attacks him and suddenly he doesn't want to kill any more?

6.) During the brawl in the tavern Rebecca has the most deliciously evil look on her face just before she head butts the prostitute she's fighting. Its pretty hilarious....you can see it in her face that she really means to kick this woman's ass.

7.) Odo is one of those sidekicks that you always have to wonder why the hero keeps 'em around. He does whatever is opposite to common sense, his own well being and the safety of everyone else over all. When he first gets possessed by the wraith Rebecca tells him to stay put at the camp site and stay out of trouble? What does he do? He purposely summons the wraith within him just so he can sneak back into town to beat up the coffin maker that bullied him. (And note that the coffin maker was only after him because Odo was fooling around with his wife!) Later on when Rebecca and Odo are forced to take shelter in a tavern Odo again uses the wraith's power to perform a few tricks for money, which results in a bar fight. In fact, if Odo had just sat quietly until Ivanhoe returned the villagers wouldn't have suffered the wraith's plague. He's like the Gilligan of Ivanhoe's party. I'm surprised Ivanhoe or Rebecca haven't killed him themselves.

Nudity and Sex: None

Huh?:

One thing about putting my infernal opinions in these reviews is that I usually get answers to my questions. The infamous "Crossbow" query in First Knight still generates a few emails from time to time, and that review is several years old. Well, in this movie I had cause to wonder about monks and fasting. When Odo disguised as a monk comes to the monastery he asks when lunch is served. The monk that greets him tells him that they are undergoing a months fast. I'm sure monks did fast, but for a month? Can people actually live that long without eating? Even if you could go a month without food after 30 days wouldn't you be really sick and weak? The monk tells Odo "Its good for the soul.". Starving is good? Either the monks don't fast completely (meaning they eat something during the month just to stay alive, but not much) or they're nuts.

Brother Luke sneaks out of his confinement through a large hole in the floor. Hey, I know that monks aren't security guards but they didn't notice this giant ass hole in the floor of the room they locked him in?
 

The wraith that possesses Odo in the second story puts the little man's hand in the fire to make a point. But when Odo is temporarily released from its control he doesn't seem to be in any pain. I don't think I have to tell anyone that being burnt is almost ridiculously painful. Odo by all rights has a third degree burn on his hand!

Considering that the coffin makers wife didn't miss any meals, it must have been a highly profitable business back in olden times. Odo sure likes 'em big.

The 2nd story on the disk has the characters make some pretty big leaps in guessing stuff. when Odo is first possessed, Ivanhoe pulls Rebecca away from him as if he KNOWS that an evil spirit is inside of Odo. But really wouldn't he just think that perhaps Odo just lost his temper at first? And later when the evil wraith uses Odo to spread a plague in the village Rebecca confronts him about it....but all she should know at this point is that Odo is carrying some sort of a sickness. Yes,, he did tell her the evil spirit made him do it, and that he may or may not have come into contact with others, but he doesn't directly say "He made me spread a plague to the village!". Rebecca just sort of intuits that the village has been infected without having been there herself.

The Final Judgment: Goofy, corny and slow in some parts. If you're into cheese and stuff you'll get a laugh or two out of this installment. If you like your entertainment serious you will be a bit pissed off. So don't be fooled if you see this under any other title they might slap on the DVD case. As far as the Inferno goes, it was a chuckle worthy bit of entertainment....and a few chuckles is sometimes all it takes in the Inferno. The Demonic Hordes award this DVD 2 devil heads.....its worth a look if you don't mind the cheese or you're an enthusiast of cheapo flicks. But then why else would you visit the Inferno?