A diamond in the rough (that lies about its amounts of Kevin Sorbo)?

Well, well. So I just saw this film. "Mythica: A Quest for Heroes". Does this mean that you need to be a hero to enroll to participate, or is it a quest with the purpose of finding heroes to begin with?

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

If I'm to be honest, I really enjoyed this film. Low-budget movies have always been my weak spot, especially fantasy or apocalyptic ones. I mostly like laughing at them.
Just recently, I saw "Dawn of the Dragonslayer", directed by Anne K. Black, who happens to be the director of "Mythica". I didn't like it all that much. However, checking her IMDb page was what made me learn of "Mythica" in the first place, or of "The Dragon and the Crown" (somehow even worse than "Dawn of the Dragonslayer", with massive continuity errors; an extreme disappointment in general), which I also saw a few days ago.

So, here comes "Mythica". I'm quite pleasantly surprised!

This film makes a big deal out of "starring Kevin Sorbo", as it seems. I like Kevin Sorbo, and I've seen him in Hercules, like everyone else. Who doesn't like Kevin Sorbo in ancient camo pants, desecrating Ancient Greek history, fighting against various villains like Count Dracula and a band of Chinese grenadiers? I like that.
But there wasn't much "starring", actually. He appears for about three minutes tops, around the beginning.

So, without Kevin Sorbo, we're left with a generic (though likeable) party on a quest to do something of extreme importance, like usual, as vague as the quest may be.
This time around, however, the protagonist isn't the Knight archetype, it's a slave girl, named Marek, who happens to be a multiclassing Wizard/Witch. She tends to overact, also has a "twisted foot" running handicap, and is left-handed... and the last trait gives me a +90 relation with her right off the bat, because I'm left-handed too.

We open up with an orcish army attacking a temple of sorts. An old dude hands a girl a stone which is of UTMOST IMPORTANCE (it's totally a MacGuffin) before getting killed; the girl gets taken by a "wild ogre" assisting the attacking side. The girl's sister, Teela (curiously played by the romantic interest in "Dawn of the Dragonslayer") is simply knocked out.

Then, we cut to Marek, the protagonistly slave-girl, with her concocting some sort of alchemy on a kitchen table whilst the master of the house is away. She is a slave, after all. A young guy is reluctantly helping her; his place is not determined, but he's probably a servant too. The curious thing in this scene is that it features boling kettles that don't seem to be exposed to any flames. Interesting.

Marek (who's probably an ancestor of Galen Marek, another performer who tends to be cheesy), goes to town, despite the possibility of being out post-curfew - the evil Vitalian Empire from "The Crown and the Dragon", despite here being more imperial and less... eugh - brands slaves as runaways if they're caught after "First Watch"... which, judging from the sunlight, is something like five o'clock at most. *Sigh*, those evil empires...

Marek visits Kevin Sorbo, who teaches her a new "displacement" spell (obviously a Chekov's gun, considering her previous alchemy spell failed), then tells her to visit an inn and ask for adventuring work there, so she can get experience. Then, he disappears - perhaps he did turn out to want too much money.

Marek is late, of course, and some evil nobleman tries to capture her. A drunken guard kills the evil dude's men (in a truly hilarious sword-fighting(-and-tossing) scene) and allows her to escape. Making her way to the inn, we see the innkeeper being a dwarf... the only dwarf in the film. He tells her that losers like her don't get work.
Luckily, at that point Teela arrives, looking for someone to save her sister, but offering - apparently - the equivalent of £20 as payment. Everyone laughs, except Marek, who jumps at the chance to feel like someone doing something.
Teela dismisses Marek at first, then decides to let her join, because "nobody else would help". Maybe the resident army legion would help, if they knew? Or someone in another tavern? Dunno, I'm just guessing.

At any rate, Marek goes and frees the drunken guard from a while ago, who's now in a cage. He's kind of dirty and sweaty, but is perfectly clean in the next scene. He's the "Knight" class.
Then, they "recruit" the funny, thieving, womanising "Rogue" class. Of course he is. (He had appeared briefly beforehand, so they know where to look.) Anyways, he is recruited just after jumping out of the "magister's wife's window", after "coupling" with her. He jumps out only with trousers on, and with a fistful of clothes. In the next scene, he's fully dressed, with cloak, and has got a bow and arrows... And previously, we were told that nobody had any money. How do these people do that? I want to do that! Are there just bows and arrows laying about?... *sigh*

So, Marek (Sorceress), Teela (Cleric), Thane (Knight), and Dagen (Rogue) - congrats on the balanced party by the way - venture off to find the sister. After a pointless battle, Dagen tries to seduce Marek, but fails, and departs the party in annoyance (that is a mandatory cliche as well, and one which I oft forget) (I'm pretty sure Marek not falling for his charm is what tipped the scales). Marek tries to spellcast, but it sort of fails (I call bollocks on this scene, left-handed people don't fail), and we understand that her "twisted foot" condition can't be healed by Teela's goddess. Marek decides to be an atheist - all the worse for her, as divine magic is now out of her reach.

The trio encounters the ogre the next day; the ogre kidnaps Knight-dude and Cleric-girl. Marek finds and liberates Rogue-dude by actually casting a working spell. Yay!
The way the ogre is never really shown interacting with the cast or its environment, and the way the whole previous... well, everything, is interspersed with comical overacting, is truly brilliant. The sort of cheesy, hilarious exaggeration of movements and actions (chiefly on Marek's part... sorry, girl) that is beyond my forum-posting skills to describe, the sort of act that must be seen. If you've watched "The Crown and the Dragon", or "Knights of Bloodsteel" (off the top of my head, stuff I saw recently), for an example, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Marek and Rogue-dude (Dagen, sorry), find the Ogre's cave and share a passionate moment together. Because, as usual, falling in love requires ten hours of trekking and a couple of life-threatening situations. I've never been in a couple of life-threatening situations, but I'm pretty sure that without them, a fair bit more than ten hours of trekking is required. Are they that much of a catalyst? Perhaps I should rig a life-threatening situation or two, and experiment... Hmmm...

Ah, did I also mention that the party covers ten leagues (that's 55 kilometres!) in one day, on foot?
And that Dagen's arrows run out during the battle, and he then somehow has a full quiver again a little while later? And that this happened maybe on two occasions? (At least on one, for certain.)
Stuff like this really makes me smirk. A lot.

So, Marek and Dagen enter the ogre's cave. There's an annoying guy there, who gets eaten. Teela's sister is in the next "cage". By "cage" I mean "a hole with a big rock on top of it, with a hole large enough for people on both sides to talk to each other. How convenient!". Teela and Thane are in the third cage.

Marek tries to cast that displacement spell that Kevin Sorbo taught her at the beginning (despite him casually mentioning not to use it on living beings, as they're likely to die) on Teela and Thane... and not on the rock that's covering their hole. Really, Marek?! At any rate, she draws upon the life-force of the nearby Dagen to succeed (as that's what evil wizards do, apparently). Teela and Thane are safe, rendering Kevin Sorbo's warnings pointless. Everyone together pushes the rock above Teela's sister aside and she's saved too.

Of course, the ogre comes by and starts attacking them. They run into a narrow part of the cave that's full of three large spider puppets or something, then they run out again, and Marek defeats the Ogre after all the others get one-punch-knocked out, one by one, in slow-mo, in a hilarious manner. Yep, the girl with the foot problem managed to dodge the ogre's blows better than the elven (yeah, Dagen's got pointy ears) rogue. Let's just let that slide...

Everyone's back at the tavern, getting the paltry "free drink and smidgen of respect" the dwarf offers them as a reward for an ogre's ear. Teela's sister rides off with the absolutely, vitally important stone that was given to her at the beginning (remember that?), to deliver it to where it should've gone in the first place, and the others raise drink in a toast to whatever fits their character stereotype.

And then, a mysterious, hooded, yellow-eyed guy is watching the tavern from above, probably admiring the roof work, and we're granted with a "to be continued".


Trust me, it sounds worse on paper. I really liked this film. It was truly hilarious in places, and had many weaknesses (like lacking enough Kevin Sorbo), but all of them were the likes of which I can forgive when it comes down to watching something like this.

Ah, I almost forgot. The poster is a lie, like the one for "In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds". Marek hasn't got a staff, and she never shoots blue lightning orbs out of her hand. Nor has she got this specific outfit at any point. And why is Kevin Sorbo on the poster? He's almost completely irrelevant to everything...

At any rate, my one big gripe is that everyone - including the ogre - considers Teela prettier than Marek, which is a lie. Marek is way more attractive... being left-handed is like the cherry on top. And she's got the magic skill of keeping her make-up awesome through peril and whatnot. (Like Teela, actually, who's got a lot more make-up, too. Hrmph.)
So... everyone's got an ogre's taste for beauty? Good work, people of... Mythica? Avador? Roshar? Tamriel? Valendia? Whatever?

This movie gets a 6/10 from me. Just like "SAGA: Curse of the Shadow", which actually felt a bit better. But didn't have a cool left-handed wannabe-wizard protagonist.

At one point along two-thirds of the film, I realised that I want to see more of it. Looking forward to "The Darkspore" and "The Necromancer" when they come out.

Feel free to deem me insane now. You're free to be wrong. :P