EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Red-Barracuda After a series of contrived events, an earthquake sends a scientist and a young bickering couple into another dimension when they fall into a matter transmitting device in a laboratory. They wind up on the planet Vonya and are forced to battle all manner of unusual villains.Prisoners of the Lost Universe was quite clearly an attempt to redo the sword and sorcery flick Hawk the Slayer (1980) with a sci-fi premise. After all, two actors from that movie essentially reprise their quite specific roles, with Peter O'Farrell once more playing an impressively irritating comic relief dwarf/small man and Ray Charleson is on hand again to play a mysterious elf/green being. Both movies also both possess an American b-movie stalwart in the role of the nasty chief villain – in 'Hawk' it was Jack Palance, while here we have the legend that is John Saxon. And to be perfectly honest, while this move is ostensibly a science fiction flick, it is to all intents and purposes essentially another fantasy adventure. The sci-fi is more or less the MacGuffin which is used to take two characters from Earth into another world where swords, sandals, hearty ale drinking, monstrous beings and beards are the order of the day. 'Prisoners' is certainly the lesser of the two movies but in all honesty there isn't a massive amount in it. 'Hawk' was low-budget and laughable in many respects and is certainly more of a cult item than a benchmark in fantasy film-making nowadays and 'Prisoners' is certainly from the same basic ballpark, even if it does lack the overall charm of the earlier movie.John Saxon is good value as always as the despotic leader of a band of evil-doers, while everybody else does what is necessary and not much more, with the exception of O'Farrell who again goes the extra mile in being successfully annoying. The film basically works because it throws a succession of creatures and baddies at us at such regular intervals that we never really get the chance to be bored. The production values are low but they still manage to rattle up some decent enough make-up and costuming, with the exception of the chauvinistic male 'hero' who sported a checked shirt throughout the picture which became slightly grating to look at when he was thrust into a fantasy environment I thought.At the end of the day, I think this movie deserves a bit of credit for at least trying. It is certainly entertaining and has a few memorable moments. If you have an appreciation for ropey early 80's fantasy-adventures, I would say that this is one that deserves to be added to your watch-list at the very least.

Uriah43 By accident a scientist by the name of "Dr. Hartman" (Kenneth Hendel), a young television reporter known as "Carrie Madison" (Kay Lenz) and a maintenance man named "Dan" (Richard Hatch) find themselves transported to "a strange and violent land" existing in another dimension. Once there they encounter a number of hostile people and creatures in a desperate struggle to survive. Anyway, so much for the plot. As far as the movie is concerned it pretty much featured one ridiculous "comic book" scenario after another filled with corny dialogue, bad acting, cheap costumes and ludicrous characters. It was pretty bad. As a matter of fact, about the only thing worth mentioning was the presence of Dawn Abraham ("Shareen") and the aforementioned Kay Lenz who at least added some nice scenery to an otherwise totally wasted effort. In summation, my strong recommendation is that you spare yourself from wasting an hour and a half on this drab and uninteresting film. You will be doing yourself a huge favor.

MartinHafer Richard Hatch and Kay Lenz star in this very low-budget sci-fi film. It all begins when each of them are accidentally sent into a parallel Earth by a machine constructed by a wacky scientist. This alternate dimension Earth is a weird amalgam of both medieval sort of weapons and more modern ones. While this doesn't make sense, I guess you can do this when you are dealing with such places. Soon after arriving, the pair are attacked repeatedly as this isn't an especially friendly world. Kay is taken prisoner by a sex-crazed leader of a band of brigands (John Saxon...and how do you like the use of the word 'brigands'?). Hatch falls in with a somewhat friendlier sort of crowd --but that isn't saying much. Our studly hero, Richard, escapes these folks after he proves his manliness in a fight that is pretty terribly choreographed. Can he navigate through this overly-macho and bombastic world, save the girl and return with her back to our Earth...all before the 94 minutes are complete? The idea of parallel worlds isn't bad at all. However, the film really looked like it was made with practically no budget. The aliens are, at times laughable (like the guys with the red glowing eyes). The sound effects occasionally odd (the 'funny' sound when the glowing-eyed creatures fell to their deaths was just weird). The script lacks wit and charm and much of the dialog is truly dreadful. For example, at one point Lenz is whining and Saxon slaps her--and you WANT him to hit her again because the dialog she was given was just dreadful! As for the actors, none of them are particularly good--and I am sure the dialog and plot didn't help any. Saxon got the worst of it, as his character was rather cartoon-like. But, at least he ("Planet Earth") and Hatch ("Battlestar Gallactica") had some prior experience in low-budget sci-fi--so they probably felt at home in this rather silly film. As for Lenz, when I saw her I just thought she was Shelley Hack--they look so much alike.So should you see this film? Probably not. It isn't that bad--so you can't see it for its unintended laugh value. But it also just isn't very good. The only reason you might want to see it is simply to watch Saxon in his very odd performance as a very difficult to forget character!

wes-connors "A scientist has developed a matter transmitter that he is able to demonstrate for two people, when an earthquake occurs, disrupting the test and plunging the trio into a parallel universe. The trio must adjust to the strange new world, where medieval weaponry is mixed with modern technology, all the while trying to find a way to travel back home. The scientist becomes separated from the young couple and they attempt to find him, all the while a warlord is trying to stop them, so he can take the young woman for his own," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Richard Hatch (as Dan) and Kay Lenz (as Carrie) are both athletic and attractive, in this vapid and vacuous parallel universe adventure. In Terry Marcel's "Prisoners of the Lost Universe", Mr. Hatch and Ms. Lenz get to say naughtier words than they said on episodic television; and, of course, they banter before falling in love. The strange universe looks exactly like our Earth; however, it populated with amusingly costumed and made-up actors. It looks like it should have been a lot more fun. ** Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983) Terry Marcel ~ Richard Hatch, Kay Lenz, John Saxon