Ator 2 - L’invincible
Orion
Like so many other
movies on this list we had real trouble tracking down a copy of this film. It
didn’t help that we discovered it has at least three different names. The
original Italian one, Ator 2: The Blade Master and then a different cut for a
VHS release that was titled Cave Dwellers. Eventually we managed to find a copy
that wasn’t in Italian and I was soon wishing that we hadn’t and had just taken
the forfeit of two movies from our reserves list…
The movie starts with
a bunch of cavemen sitting around eating the nits from each others hair (and if
you’ve read my Eegah review you’ll know my feelings about cavemen in movies, if
not read it here), but soon the *cough* action *cough* moves on to Akronas (Charles
Borromel), a scholar who shows his daughter Mila (Lisa Foster) a discovery he’s
made, some shiny crystal thing (according to my notes) that could act as a
powerful weapon. To prevent this getting into the hands of the evil Zor (David
Cain Haughton), who is approaching his castle, Akronas asks Mila to find his
old student Ator (Miles O’Keefe) (and if you haven’t seen the first movie,
there’s a recap on his history, which seems to be pretty much most of the movies
action if this movie is anything to go by). She escapes the castle before Zor
invades and eventually finds Ator and his assistant, Thong (Chen Wong), who was immortalised when Sisqo wrote a song about him in 1999. The
trio must then get back to the castle whilst fighting off cave-men and a giant
snake to rescue Akronas and defeat Zor. I in the meantime must fight off the
dreaded Snoozor and try to stay awake!
As you can see for the
brief summary of the plot, this really is a by the numbers barbarian story.
Important quest? Check. Ridiculously named characters? Check. Giant, deadly
animals? Check. Porn star moustaches? Check. A muscular topless man who likes
to wave his sword about? Sort-of check (Miles O’Keeffe does have muscles and is
tall and imposing, he looks like an average gym-goer (if average gym-goers have
the hair of a bad 80s soft rock star), but is hardly Lou Ferringo or Charles
Atlas sized). An exciting story full of fighting and adventure? Che…. No wait.
That’s what this film was missing.
As far as sword and
sorcery films go, when I watch them I expect only one thing of them, and that’s
to be entertained. This film failed on that front in a spectacular way. Where
the obvious inspiration for this movie, Conan The Barbarian, was adapted into
an epic adventure, involving thievery, snake gods, sword fighting, ridiculous
names, lavish sets and costumes, porn star moustaches and the Arnold
Schwarzeneggar before he was a household name, this movie missed everything
that made Conan a classic.
Instead of a
barbarian, Ator seems to be more of a scholar with a set of weights. Whilst
this could be interesting if done with skill, it’s just boring in this movie. Even
when he decides the best way to storm a castle is to take a leaf from the Ewoks
book and go via a hang glider, it just seems to reek of a desperate attempt to
inject some life into the movie. Also it’s more than a little confusing as to
where he either got the time and materials to build a hang glider or where in
his very skimpy outfit he was storing one.
Zor is also a terrible
bad guy. Instead of being an evil despot who will stop at nothing to get what
he wants, he spends the movie trying to show what a nice guy he is. There are
many long scenes where he tries to reason with Akronas, trying to prove that
even though he just invaded his castle, he really is reasonable. I’m not sure
if it was the dubbing, or Haughton’s poor acting, but these scenes really do
come across as though he’s just trying to flirt with Akroanas. I guess it
doesn’t help that the person dubbing him sounds like Eddie Izzard playing the
person serving behind the Death Star canteen.
He comes across more
of a very camp politician than an evil despot. I know this was the idea, but it
just doesn’t work. I can believe the high priest of an evil cult could become a
powerful leader in these sort of worlds, and of course the most powerful of
warriors, but someone who basically the David Brent of the savage lands? A man
who’s more “do the hokey cokey” than Dothraki. It’s just totally unbelieveable.
But the disbelief in
how bad this film can get really doesn’t stop there. One of bits that made me
laugh at how bad it was, is when Zor’s wizard is tasked to kill Ator from afar.
He says the immortal line “and now you will witness the might of my power” and
throws some magic dust into a bowl. The might of this wizards power seems to be
that he can create a bit of light fog in the woods where Ator, Thong and Mila
are running. I’m not entirely sure how this is witnessed by Akronas, and
neither myself or Colin were convinced that this really counted as might.
Mildly inconveniencing the hero doesn’t seem all that powerful to me.
The giant snake that Ator
has to fight in this film comes at the point where you just expect things to
keep getting worse, and you’re not disappointed by that. It’s less convincing
than a snake from The Muppet Show. It’s so obviously a terrible puppet, you
half expect Rod Hull to walk around the corner with his arm inside of it. I say
half expect, because watching Emu attack Michael Parkinson was more believable than
watching O’Keefe wrap himself in a rubber snake as he flails around.
This movie has so much
padding, it’s like the training bra of Barbarian movies. Although this movie is
only an hour and a half long, it’s so boring that it feels like it goes on for
twice as long. The movie so bad that they named it thrice. Well I’d like to
suggest another name if they ever decide to rerelease it under a different name
in a cynical bid to fool people it’s not the same crappy movie. Conan the
Bore-barian!
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