GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Konterr Brilliant and touching

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

michael-3204 Reg Park was a champion British bodybuilder from Leeds known for his size. He prefigured the bigger man who dominated the sport when it gained in popularity, especially Arnold Schwarzenegger, who considered Park a friend and mentor. He was a natural choice to play Hercules and, I think, the second-best at it after Steve Reeves. He just has to stand there to look imposing, but he had a natural athlete's grace, an easy charm, and looked good with a beard.Originally titled "Ercole alla conquista di Atlantide" (Hercules at the Conquest of Atlantis) the American title doesn't make much sense because there is only one captive woman and she is freed by Hercules, then recaptured and freed by Hercules's son. That, however, is only the tip of the stop-making-sense iceberg, even though the film tries to build a half-baked political backdrop for the story (the early scenes could have inspired "The Phantom Menace," except that this is more entertaining). The Atlantis story the film concocts is not one that has any basis in any mythology I'm familiar with, but it involves an evil queen Antinea (Fay Spain) who plots to take over the world and destroy Greece with her army of super-soldiers, who's capabilities she badly overestimates. Naturally, she falls for Hercules, which is one of the many Peplum tropes the filmmakers squeeze in: the comic-relief sidekick, played by little person Salvatore Furnari; the dancing girls; the monsters and animals Hercules has to dispatch. This time, the film gets that out of the way with the character of demi-god Proteus, who can shape shift, so Hercules takes on a serpent (man in hilarious rubber suit), snake, lion and bird of prey in rapid succession. There is a surprising amount of armchair philosophizing, with Hercules insisting he couldn't do what he does if the gods didn't approve but otherwise being quite the skeptic. He tells Queen Antinea he likes his nature to be natural, as opposed to augmented by magic, and she basically tells him to check his privilege. Overall, this is very silly but very watchable and enjoyable, even if it is slow to get going. See also the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version.

vchimpanzee I'm not sure how much of this movie was "real." There was a small amount of dialogue that was obviously inserted into the movie just for Elvira's version. Such as when two characters from ancient Atlantis mentioned Elvira.But surely the dialogue that Elvira ranted about really happened. I'm guessing nearly all the lines spoken were really in the movie. The voices didn't match the actors' lips moving, though, but I should have realized: this meant the movie was dubbed. I've seen only one humorously dubbed movie, but because that was a respected movie, I concluded the original must also have been humorous and that the lines were legitimate. I could also tell at least one actor did a really good job without ever hearing him speak. I didn't have that advantage here, so I can't really evaluate anyone's performance.One thing is certain: this was a poorly dubbed movie. The actors speaking English were atrocious. Elvira commented on how bad it was but I never saw her say that was why. And I finally had to agree: they couldn't have made a worse movie if they were trying to make it bad. It is entirely possible the original in Italian was actually worth seeing. But I have only this version to evaluate.Here's what I believe happened: in ancient Greece, Androcles felt threatened by a nearby kingdom and took Hercules, one of his greatest warriors, and a group of slaves, along with the midget (Elvira's term) Timotheus, along on a large boat to deal with the problem. Before leaving, Hercules said goodbye to his wife and his son Hylas, and it appeared he really loved them and was going to miss them. What he didn't know was that Timotheus was hiding Hylas in the boat.There was some sort of mutiny and the slaves left. Androcles and Hercules felt that leaving the slaves behind was not cruel because they were still alive and the island had resources. But the land of Atlantis, normally invisible to humans, became visible. Hercules landed there and rescued Ismene, daughter of the Queen of Atlantis, who was imprisoned in a stone. He did this by defeating an evil creature who kept changing shape. The people of Atlantis had to make sacrifices to please one of the gods, so Ismene was chosen but now could be set free. Or could she? The title suggests more captive women, but there weren't any. Instead, Hercules had to deal with a queen who seemed appreciative and yet at the same time wanted Hercules dead. Plus Androcles was missing. And the young boys of Atlantis were being sacrificed in order to create a master race. Something similar to a leper colony was the result of failures in the attempt.That's what I believe happened, leaving out the ending.The plot seems interesting enough. Hercules faces up to all his challenges, and even though he has some really big ones, he is after all one of the greatest warriors of his time. And Timotheus is a good friend, even if his dialogue is difficult to understand. Hylas also proves very helpful. There are plenty of good fights, and one of the effective-looking weapons, never actually used, reminds me of a modern movie microphone.Maybe this isn't so bad.

PeplumParadise One of the greatest films of the genre with Park in the title role doing what it says on the packet, with some stunning set pieces, beautiful cinematography, gloriously silly monsters, and (unfortunately) the customary annoying dwarf sidekick (Salvatore Furnari). British-born Park, in his first film role, is perfectly cast, in great physical shape (bulkier than Steve Reeves ever was and keeping his torso on show throughout), and is also a reasonable actor. Former Hollywood B-movie starlet Fay Spain is also terrific as the evil Queen of Atlantis in her only peplum appearance. Mimmo Palmara is all but unrecognisable under a mask (shamelessly "borrowed" directly from Atlantis, The Lost Continent), while genre regulars Ettore Manni and Mario Petri provide their usual dependable support. There is definitely something a bit gay about the three-way relationship between Park, Luciano Marin (supposedly playing his son) and Furnari (whom Park sits on his knee at one point), and Park is frequently told that things have happened because of "Uranus" (which, no matter how you look at it, still sounds like "your anus"!).The English language and European releases feature completely different openings, the European release featuring a much longer version (7 minutes) of the opening bar room brawl complete with exotic dancer going on behind the credits and without the voice over, and there is also an additional scene in the countryside before everything turns red. The scene where Hercules destroys the throne is also several minutes longer in the European release, as is the storm at sea sequence. There are numerous other slight editing differences throughout which account for approximately 8 minutes difference in running times.

MartinHafer In the late 1950s and through the 1960s, an odd sort of film became very popular--Italian strong-man tales set during the classical period. The characters were usually named Hercules, Maciste, Ursus or Samson--and often, due to HORRIBLE dubbing, the same movie might be dubbed so poorly that in one version he's Samson and in another he's Hercules. It seems that the names weren't really that important, nor was the dubbing. What was important is that, at the time, it was cheap to make films in Italy and with some less than expert dubbing, you could sell the film to many different markets...and people, surprisingly, came to see the films even though most of them are pretty terrible. If you see this particular one, you might think it's among the worst--it isn't. In fact, it's pretty typical of the crappy strong-man films.Like so many of these films, a foreign guy stars as the strong dude. However, Reg Park hails from the UK and South Africa--most of these men were Americans in these films. I assume back in those days, Italian men must have been pretty wimpy, because they didn't just use Italian leading men for these roles! Most of the leads were body builders in real life (Park had been Mr. Universe--though I doubt if other planets sent representatives to the competition).As for the plot, this one involves an insane and power-mad queen (also a pretty typical plot--it's the third film like this I've seen and I've only seen about 8 or 10 of the films). And, like the others, she had designs on taking over the entire world and serves an evil god. However, Hercules and his buddy Androcles don't know this--all they know is that they are on a rather pathetic expedition (with practically no men--just a rag-tag group that includes a midget and Herc's son who is a stowaway). The journey is prompted after some soothsayer announces that there is a threat from an army overseas. And, of course this takes our friends to the evil queen--who rules in Atlantis!! The evil queen has three goals. First, to kill her own daughter and anyone else if the mood strikes--including her own henchmen (good henchman are hard to come by--this seems very wasteful). Second, to take over the world. Third, to see if what's inside Hercules' tunic is of Olympian proportions!! It's a pretty standard cliché that the evil queens ALWAYS want a piece of the Herc-meister! Hercules' goal is to find his friend Androcles. Once he does, oddly, Andy doesn't recognize him and even tries to kill him. I'd much prefer if he'd tried to kill the midget. I am NOT anti-midget, but this guy (like the dumb satyr or 'goat boy' from the awful Hercules cartoons of the same era) was just annoying--mostly because his dubbed voice was so dreadful. Eventually, after LOTS of fighting, the city of Atlantis is destroyed by an exploding volcano--and THAT'S how the lost city apparently became lost.Overall, the dubbing was by far the worst part of the film. However, the costumes, sets and action were all pretty lame. In particular, I loved the lameness (or is it 'lamitude'?) of the reptile man who attacked Herc on the first island he came to in the movie. It's so dumb you can't help but laugh. My score of 3 is probably way too generous...but compared to many others in the genre, believe me, it could be MUCH worse (such as "Maciste Vs. the Moon Men"). Perhaps it's good for a laugh, but make sure not to watch too many of these films--your brain probably can't take THAT much!