"Lionman II: The Witchqueen" is the 1979 sequel to the 1975 Turkish movie "Lionman," also known as "Aslan Adam." It's pathetic beyond belief: so much effort goes into making these exciting rousing action scenes, and yet, watching this, my adrenaline dropped to something close to a comatose state. I think it's because NONE of the badguys EVER get a blow in until the "climactic" finale. Faceless uniformed soldiers run into the goodguys and get mowed down. It's like they're not even TRYING to fight. Action scenes are much more exciting if it looks like the goodguys might not win. But our small quirky band of heroes, I swear, hacks through maybe a hundred badguys, and none of the badguys ever even come CLOSE to getting a hit in. Plus, the goodguys do some unbelievable things: once Lionman deflects a sword swing with his bare arm. Several times Chimp, Lionman's aged and graying yet athletic companion, goes through the motions of Errol Flynn-like acrobatics to dodge attacks, but the choreography is hilariously pathetic. For example, in one shot, Chimp is being chased by two guards, so he jumps up and latches onto a beam on the ceiling, flips around while the guards pass by underneath, drops down, and shoves both guards into the wall. Well, that's how it was supposed to look. What really happens is Chimp jumps up, flips around the bar, clumsily drops down to the ground with his back still to the badguys, and the badguys run AROUND HIM and smack into the wall.

Anyway, we open with a sorceress getting instructions from her raspy old dad. She's supposed to seek out somebody or other and come into power. Cut to a barroom brawl, started when a bully tries to hit on the evil sorceress. The acting is hilarious. "Come to our table!" he shouts. She turns him down, and he and his friends laugh in the most hilariously wooden way imaginable. Lionman comes in and beats them all up and leaves. The bar owner then, in the manner telemarketers read their spiels to you over the phone, tells the sorceress all about Lionman, summarizing the events in the original film. Some clips of it are shown. If they're any indication, the original movie is exactly like this one.

Cut to Lionman moping about in his rather barren castle. "Palace life is not for me," he intones. His brother protests, but "palace life is not for me," Lionman repeats. Since his wife died, he says, he has no reason to hang about in a palace and rule. His brother suggests he should remarry. "Marriage is not for me," Lionman says. He names his brother regent. He says goodbye to his five year old nephew by playing one last game of shoot-the-apple. This game is an improvement on the famous William Tell story in which William Tell shoots an apple off his son's head. Lionman's nephew stands against a wall holding an orange BEHIND his head. Lionman shoots an arrow, says "NOW!", and the kid moves his head aside and lets the arrow hit the orange. No comment.

So Lionman and his band of odd compatriots set off across the wilderness on a quest for nothing in particular. Obviously, the sorceress needs to kill Lionman. Such aimless wandering HAS to be a devastating threat to her evil plan, whatever it is! So she entrances Lionman and has some faceless guards take him somewhere, but one of the guards' cardboard spears grazes his shoulder, and Lionman breaks out of the trance and beats everybody up.

Cut to another bar scene. Some big humongous guy makes idle chatter, saying that men lose their appetites when they're in love. His wife objects, because the big guy is currently devouring what looks to be an entire spit roasted lamb and a bushel of potatoes. The guy says -- get this -- "Well, it's different with me!" Isn't that funny? Aren't you laughing? Everybody in the movie thinks it's hilarious, because they all bust out laughing, sort of like the closing shot of every single Scooby Doo episode. Another brawl breaks out. Lionman has the stupidest battle cry ever. It's a monotone "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" with a recording of an actual lion roar spliced in there.

Part of the plot involves the discovery of gunpowder. The sorceress demonstrates gunpowder to the other main badguy, the brother of the badguy in the first movie. The gunpowder enables them to concoct a plan to kill Lionman's regent brother. Here's what they do: they hypnotize a goodguy and get him to enter the palace with a sack of gunpowder. Then they arrange for him to enter the throne room and get near the regent. Then a badguy shoots a flaming arrow into the window, hits the gunpowder sack, and the explosion kills the regent.

My plan would have been a little simpler. Shoot an arrow into the window of the throne room and kill the regent.

So Lionman and his compatriots somehow decide to trek across the wilderness back to the castle. This time they have to cross Dead Man's Valley, which is inhabited by furtive people with inexplicable agendas. Dead Man's Valley, for example, contains deadly traps such as a tree with spears in it. Step on the wrong spot, and the spears come shooting out and kill you. When our heroes spot the tree with the spears sticking out of it, they pause thoughtfully. One of them grabs a boulder and throws it on the grass to trigger the spears. The spears shoot into the ground, and now our heroes can pass through safely. So they TURN and walk in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION. That's right -- they could have just kept walking and ignored the spear tree altogether.

The sorceress continues to hynotize people, which she does with the aid of a bird. More stuff happens. Our heroes cross a swamp, but there's a rubber snake in the swamp that attacks them. Our heroes run away to the other side of the swamp and escape. Then Lionman GOES BACK and does battle with the snake. Again, they were safe from a menace but had to backtrack and wrestle with it anyway.

Later, Lionman scales the walls of the castle. He does this with the aid of his stupid iron gloves with TINY, not even pointy bumps on it. He smacks his fist into the wall, and somehow it takes hold enough to support his weight. It's hilarious how stupid it looks.

They confront the sorceress. Lionman shoots her bird, and that makes the sorceress moan stupidly and melt in a sudden fire.

The end credits say that a sequel is forthcoming: "Lionman: Ring of the Magus." I shook my head in disbelief and wondered why. The movie was so generic and lacking character, I can't imagine it being any different from the original, nor can I imagine a sequel would be different either. This kind of movie makes me jealous about the caliber of people that get to make movies. I *know* I could have done much better.

Rating: 3 turkeys.