Gor

Try, if you can, to imagine Disney's fantasy/sci-fi mega-budget flop John Carter as if it had been made in the '80s by The Cannon Group, producers of such cinematic clunkers as Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, American Ninja, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. This might give you some idea of what Gor is like: dreadful production values, a terrible script, lousy action, unconvincing sets, cheap costumes, and a cast of has-beens and never-weres directed by the man responsible for Stephen King dud Children of the Corn.

The film stars Urbano Barberini as mild-mannered physics lecturer Tarl Cabot, who is transported to the planet Gor by his magic ring, where he helps a group of brave warriors to overthrow evil despot Sarm (Oliver Reed), who has enslaved the people of nearby villages and stolen their sacred homestones. Featuring wooden performances from everyone, with the exception of Oliver Reed, who hams it up to the max (his exuberant performance no doubt aided by enough alcohol to fuel a small plane), Gor is difficult to endure, although the generous curves of sexy warrior woman Talena (Playboy playmate Rebecca Ferratti) help to ease the pain just a little.

1 out of 10, with a generous extra point added for the battle of the bad '80s hair-dos, as Talena, with her massive rock-babe barnet, fights another woman sporting crimped blonde locks.

American professor Tarl Cabot is transported via a magical ring to planet Gor, where he must help an oppressed country overthrow its evil king and his barbarian henchmen.

Apparently this film was widely criticized for being campy, and also has come under attack from feminists for its sexist point of view. Of course, I cannot say it is not campy, but I will say that in some ways that is part of the charm. As for the sexism, well... this is another world. Should the attitudes of the people in this invented world be held against the film as a whole? (Honestly, I found it very tame -- not nearly as sexist as, say, "A Boy and His Dog".) We have the great Jack Palance and Hammer veteran Oliver Reed... how do you beat that?

I've read some of the Gor books and enjoyed them. (Norman's later writing became far too sexist for me to stomach, but the first several are pretty good stories if you like the genre.)

But this movie *totally* sucked and about the only thing one could do with it is to have MST3000 do their thing (good luck). I turned it off after about 15 minutes and was seriously tempted to burn the video store's copy to spare anyone else the pain of seeing the thing.

This movie was bad and I don't mean that in a good way. I enjoy bad films. This film was boring. For my male friends the best part of this film was the great female fight scenes which is best described in the words of one friend "Cool it's T vs A". There were only two reasons I could sit through the boredom that was this movie. First I had read Tarnsman of Gor which is a decent book even if the author goes into a psychotic misogynistics breakdown after the first 3 books in the series. Second this movie managed to rope JACK PALANCE into playing a part. I spent the whole movie waiting for Jack Palance to appear and it was almost as fruitful as waiting for Gedot. He shows up in the last 3 minutes setting up for a sequel...god I hope they don't make one. Not worth the time it took to watch.

I have to admit I had fun to watch it and I didn't turn it off so it can't be that bad. The acting didn't even appear that bad but maybe because I watched it in German and probably the dubbing was good. This movie hadn't a big budget but also far away from the smallest of this B-Movie Fantasy kind. The dialogs were quite simple and cheesy but not too stupid. It had some moments. I liked the music, it was old-school Fantasy/Sci-Fi Music. The second half of the movie could have been shorter in my opinion because it did not happen that much there. Cameraman did a good job, probably one of the most skilled people who worked on this movie. I wanted some fantasy-like stuff and I got it (which isn't really easy nowadays) and it entertained me, not on the highest level possible but it was enough to fulfill my need of watching fantasy stuff, so if you have that need as well you should give it a try.