Steel Force

Here's a premise dear to the 15-year-old boy in all of us. A high school football star is kidnapped with his girlfriend and forced to fight duel-to-the-death gladiator matches run by a sexy dominatrix! It just doesn't get any better than this.

As expected, the resulting movie is one of those fun-bad affairs, with hokey dialog, cardboard sets, and hopelessly inadequate casting, but if it were any better, it'd actually be worse. (Still, one wishes it had shown a bit more skin since there are ample opportunities for displays of this sort.)

Kevin Walsh makes an enthusiastic though implausible hero. He doesn't look tough enough to win a food fight back at Sweet Valley High and yet here he is knocking off muscle-bound gladiators and subduing prison guards who want him to, shall we say, bend over in the showers and pick up the soap. Especially worth noting is the outfit he wears in the arena -- a silvery hot-pants affair such as might be donned by a drag-queen at a Salute-to-Cher Festival.

(1990) Legion of Iron ACTION

Aspired college football player, Billy Hamilton (Kevin T. Walsh) is admired from a couple of goons during a game. And as soon as him and his girlfriend, Allison (Camille Carrigan) get some alone time after hours, the two men who were gazing at him at the field, then get drugged and helicoptered toward a desert. Where there's an underground compound hidden on a side of a rocky mountain where gladiator-like battles are being taken place with an arena, called "Legion of Iron" led by Queen Diana (Erika Nann) where wagers are being made. Only by the time he is there, he is then befriended by former football player, Lyle Wagner (Reggie De Morton) for the purpose of acting as his trainer for the gladiator-like games, while his girlfriend Allison is being manhandled by other men guards/ and by a sadistic gladiator named Rex (Stefanos Miltsakakis).

Somewhat watchable junk that looked like a movie that would have had some nude scenes, but it doesn't despite the R rating which may be the result of the violence. The problem is that much of the so-called violence, particularly the torture, fight scenes and the shoot outs looked fake, while the women assault scenes are implied besides the second rate acting. The movie was obviously inspired by the much budgeted and superior movie "The Running Man" from 1987.

Vampy Erika Nan chews the scenery up in this! As the sexy, evil "Queen Diana" who lords it over her subterranean desert gladiator/gambling liar, she plays the deadly bitch broadly (heh heh) and with obvious relish! The twisted villainess will have most male viewers drooling!

My review was written in August 1990 after watching the movie on RCA/Columbia video cassette.

Futuristic gladiator battles get a ho-hum runthrough in "Legion of Iron", a direct-to-video feature lacking in originality.

Preposterous opening has high school football star Kevin T. Walsh and his cheerleader girlfriend Camile Carrigan kidnapped on lovers' lane and flown to some faraway desert nation to be slaves to dominatrix ruler Erika Nann.

Following in a long line of escapist fare ranging from "Rollerball" to this year's "The Blood of Heroes", "Iron" depicts the hapless adventures of these two innocents trying to escape the clutches of sexy but evil Nann.

A black football star, Regie De Nrton, befriends Walsh and teaches him how to survive, all the while plotting an escape. Meanwhile, virginal Carrigan is raped as he victory prized by a victorious gladiator and gradually turned into a "bad girl" by Nann. Eventual escape following a team match against the Japanese is well-staged in the desert with exciting stunt work.

Nann's trashy performance with clothes to match sets the tone here, but film fails crucially to create the necessary excitement when the he-men do battle. Carrigan handles the transition from good to bad girl and back again with aplomb and Walsh makes a functional if nondescript hero.

High-school football player, Billy, is merely trying to get in the pants of his frigid girlfriend who's having none of it when they're both kidnapped. He's to be a gladiator fighting for the whims of millionaires in an underground bunker, and she to be a virgin sex slave. All the while plotting to escape from the prison and it's campy queen bee.

What could've been a fun crappy campy movie somehow misses that mark and ends up a badly dated, lame, mess of a film. Badly acted characters with bizarre motivation and clunky dialog made the movie feel longer than it actually was.