No.341 : Warrior Queen (1987)

Warrior Queen at the IMDb

Time to class things up here with this historical drama which charts the last days of Pompeii. OK, the Frankie Howerd version may have been more accurate and had better sets, but this has Sybil Danning and a man being killed with a Frisbee.

We open with Sybil arriving in town in a small bandwagon. They are attacked by some brigands who quickly see off her soldier escort. They didn’t bargain on Sybil however, as she manages to kill three of them without breaking a sweat or looking a bit interested.

Meanwhile in town, the slave auction is in full swing and the director wastes no time in setting out his stall for his target audience. Let’s just say the bidders insist on a full inspection of the goods.

A ‘Ben Hur’ wannabe shows up and has a bit of a scrap with a non copyright ‘Hercules’ and Donald Pleasence takes the pay cheque as Emporer Clodius who fawns over Sybil a lot and does little else. The plot here is as thin as the slave girls’ tops but essentially we get a few days ‘slice of life’ entertainment before Vesuvius blows its top in magical stock footage fashion.

Sybil’s motivations aren’t clear but she does befriend one slave girl and takes a necklace off her and gives it back at the end. I guess she’s meant to be some sort of emancipation figure but she hardly has any lines and zero character development. Ben Hur and the slave girl we follow have a small romance arc that sees him killing folk in the arena whilst she gets raped in the woods. They all come through it unscathed, although the same can’t be said for their wardrobes.

There isn’t any real social commentary here with the elaborate fighting games and freely available sex doubtless meant to signal that this society was too bloated and due a bit of cleansing. Some of the exposition may have been lost in the 68 minute cut I saw on Amazon prime, but I doubt it. This was a ‘Caligula’ type soft porn with history used to dress up a bit of smut. Alas the production values were not matched with stock footage obtrusively appearing for the crowd and eruption scenes, and many of the sets looking distinctly wobbly despite the Rome locations.

This is just short enough to not be a total waste of time as you will get a couple of cheezy laughs and some titillation for your hour long investment. Don’t be basing your thesis on it though, unless its titled ‘Crappy & Inaccurate Boob Fests I Have Seen’.

Best Bit : I bid 1000 Sesterti! ‘W’ Rating 8/23

No.308 : Wolf Totem (2015)

Wolf Totem at the IMDb

Who’s up for some Chinese language period cinema? Just me then!

Made in 2015, ‘Wolf Totem’ is set in 1967, two years after the cultural revolution in China. Two students are sent from Peking to teach the Mongolian natives Mandarin for two years. Could have been worse, they might have gotten Port Glasgow.

A guy from the Ministry of Production dumps our lads with an old guy from a nomadic tribe. He tells him to put them to work and he’ll be back in a couple of years. And he doesn’t even leave the wi-fi password.

We flash-forward six months with our guys settling in and becoming able horsemen. One gets a bit cocky and goes off the path only to be confronted by a pack of wolves. He gets away by clanging his stirrups, but we’re pretty sure that lead wolf gave him a pass.

Our man develops a fascination for wolves and resolves to find a cub that he can rear and study. The locals are not so keen, what with the wolves eating all their sheep. The fine balance between people and wolves is disturbed when the tribesmen steal all of the wolves’ food. I don’t know if this is true, but it was a good scene where the wolves stash all their dead gazelles in a snowdrift to eat later in the winter. This has happened from generations and the humans have always left enough for the wolves. This doesn’t suit the man from the ministry however, and he orders the people to grab the lot, despite warnings from the wise old man in charge.

Of course the old man is right and the wolves get their own back by driving a herd of prize horses into a freezing lake where they all drown. Despite it being tit for tat the ministry sets out to kill all wolves by hunting down and killing the cubs. Our hero manages to save one and starts to bring it up, despite local hostility.

The nomadic tribe are ordered to work with another more settled group and things start to go badly wrong. The old man is injured by a bomb set to kill wolves and a child is hurt when he gets a bit too close to the slowly growing cub. With the wolves now starving all out war is declared (not literally) and when the wolves have a sheep eating party , the ministry resolves to kill off the wolves for good.

Can any survive and can the symbiotic relationship between man and wolf be restored?

This was an excellent film with cracking cinematography and animal action. It was almost like a Disney film, but with more killing and death. It is subtitled but you’d probably manage without them as the plot is a pretty simple progress v nature narrative. The wolves were shown sympathetically and they are wonderful creatures. That said, I could see why the villagers thought them to be a pain in the arse.

There was a tacked on romance story that I didn’t buy into but the Mongolian grass people getting royally shafted at every turn was an interesting watch. Real wolves were used in the production but they did look a bit stage school in some scenes. You could tell they slowed the film down and adjusted the lighting to show them at their best. And why not? It was their show and they provided great entertainment and a bit of learning too.

I wasn’t keen on the cub killing, which involved them being chucked them in the air, and the cornered wolf committing suicide rather than being caught seemed a bit daft.

There was a lot of focus on the spiritual, with the God Tennger getting most of the credit, with some fancy cloud work letting us know that everything will be all right.

The production was lavish with some cracking set pieces including a lake of frozen horses which was fantastically realised.

Overall, not one for the squeamish but an interesting parable on the age old ‘man v beast’ issue with plenty of scenes that will stick with you.

Best Bit : Horse Lake 20/23

No.178 : Wrath of the Titans (2012)

Wrath of the Titans at the IMDb

 Off to the olden days now as we take a look at this sequel to the remake of ‘Clash of the Titans’ - they don’t make them like that any more - oh wait they do. I haven’t seen the original remake probably due to it’s lack of Harry Hamelin or indeed a ‘W’ initial.

We don’t get much in the way of a recap, but it seems 10 years have passed since that film when Perseus slayed the Kraken and saved the day. He is now a widower and father to a young son. Despite being the son of Zeus he is living the simple life of a fisherman, so we are in for a dull film. But wait! Stuff is happening!

Zeus, played by a disinterested Liam Neeson, pops by to see the grandson and warn of bad omens. It seems that people have wised up and stopped praying to the Gods lessening their powers. The bad guys are taking advantage of this and plan to destroy the world. After getting the brush off from his idiot son, Zeus heads off to the underworld to have a chat with his brother Hades, played by an even more disinterested Ralph Fiennes. Bad mistake! Hades has his own plans and takes Zeus prisoner at the behest of their father Chronos - it’s like the Jeremy Kyle Show in that family.

The ominous portents prove truthful when, with their added Zeus powers, the bad guys unleash the titans - basically a pile of CGI monsters. These attack Perseus’ village and he soon has to don the leather chaps that signify he’s off to battle - or The Blue Oyster Club - it’s not made clear. The rest of the film is basically a quest as he gathers some support from the lovely Rosamund Pike, a poor man’s Russell Brand (if such a thing is possible) and Bill Nighy who hams it up horribly.

Soon our heroes are in the underworld and ready to free Zeus who has been connected to a Santa making machine that’s given him a long white beard. Can the siblings get together and gang up on Dad before no one believes in them anymore and condemns them to a dusty fate? Will Perseus remain at his nets with his son or will the passing of the thunderbolt tell him there is more to life than haddock?

This was a very much by the numbers swords and sandals epic and although it had a raft of stars and some decent action the whole thing was far less than the sum of its parts. Sam Worthington, late of ‘Avatar’, didn’t hack it as Perseus for me with his Aussie accent most jarring in the ancient world. He didn’t impress as the reluctant hero and his character’s arc where he went from fisherman to action hero to reluctant heir didn’t convince.

Liam and Ralph were obviously just in it for the pay cheques and you could sense their embarrassment as they apologetically delivered their laughable dialogue. Better was Rosamund, who although miscast as an Amazon warrior queen, did look most fetching in her leather mini skirt.

The bests bits were the action sequences with the opening and closing battles good fun. Both were totally pointless in the course of the film but you can’t see enough eight legged monsters getting a stick in the eye as far as I’m concerned. Despite a seemingly massive budget some bits were decidedly shoddy with a totally unconvincing flying horse only beaten in the crappy stakes by some fake looking Cyclops giants and some ropy wire work.

I’m not sure of the market this film was aimed at - there were long passages of dull chat with occasional CGI battles thrown in to keep the tempo up. The violence was cartoon at best and apart from Rosamund’s skirt there wasn’t any sexiness either.

Overall ‘Wrath of the Titans’ had a few watchable moments but ultimately it was a pointless exercise, unless you have ‘O’ level classics on Monday.

Best Bit : Oh me skirt keeps flapping up.
‘W’ Score 13/23