MonsterHunter

Here’s a movie that’s going to satisfy that contingent of gladiator fans that like watching old, short guys near the end of their life strapping on the Roman soldier outfit and battling a bunch of guys half his age and still come out on top. Sure, in the end both of his brothers are killed in the battle, his sister commits suicide, and his father has been accusing him of being a coward and a traitor for most of the movie, but other than that, he came out on top. Read More »

Nine months after Richard Burton was harassed into becoming a Christian by a red beach towel in The Robe, Hollywood decided it was time to take Jesus’ favorite outfit out of mothballs for another go around and sicced Demetrius And The Gladiators on us. Since this whole Christian thing worked out so well for Burton and co-star Jean Simmons (you might recall they ended up on the wrong end of the archery field at the end of the last episode), it was left to Victor Mature to run around squawking about this robe and how it can just butt out of his life when things get rough. Read More »

This one basically boils down to a story of a boy and his blankie. Now, it’s a very important blankie, but still a blankie nonetheless. In this case the guy is Richard Burton and he develops a fetish for the robe that Jesus wore up on the cross. I’m a fairly strong Christian around Easter time and such, but I wasn’t really familiar with this story from the Good Book. They might have had to leave it out of the Classics Illustrated Bible that I regularly consult when I don’t like what my horoscope says, so my ignorance is really not only understandable, but probably expected. Read More »

Holy crap, that was long! Such was my reaction after finishing this one about two days after I started it. Lumbering, plodding, crawling, rumbling, stumbling, and finally bumbling into the endzone after an eternity, this movie (and really, that’s probably too charitable a term for something more akin to second job) will sorely test the patience of even the hardiest of historical epic fans. Read More »

Two-time Academy Award winner Anthony Quinn barely registers here in this movie about the dude everyone picked over Jesus to be set free when it was time for the weekly crucifixions. Quinn has very little dialogue, very few scenes of dramatic impact and spends most of his time on the road to accepting the Christian faith, grunting and mumbling like he just woke up or something. Read More »

This is pretty much the same movie as the first Hercules movie with Lou Ferrigno. Except that it’s worse. Which means it is better. Such are the paradoxes of an ancient world inhabited by petty gods, improbably pumped up muscle studs, and increasingly awful special effects. It is also a world that honors its past. And by that I mean that the first seven minutes of this movie were merely clips from the first movie inserted between the various opening credits. But we’re here for sweat-drenched man deeds of glory so it’s all good, right? Read More »