Gladiatress

The girls of UK comedy TV show "Smack The Pony" take on the "Gladiator" story- like an answer to the lads of "Spaced" doing "Shaun Of The Dead" (except that "Gladiatress" was filmed at the same time, or possibly even first?) It's a real shame that this film got overlooked, and possibly even buried, in the shadow of "Shaun Of The Dead" as it's a funny film in it's own right. There are a lot of parallels in the style between the two films though. For a start, I was falling off my seat with laughter in both films.

Like "Shaun..", a lot of the jokes wouldn't be funny if you had only ever seen them written down- a lot of the real comedy is in the delivery. For example the line "I don't even know where Rome is... s***..."- dull written down but laugh-out-loud when you hear Sally Phillips saying it. Also like "Shaun..", it's really vulgar in parts but never too much, and even though you don't expect to, by the end you're empathising with characters you thought at the beginning of the film you couldn't possibly like.

My only criticisms would be that the first ten minutes are a bit shaky- which might explain why this film has got some poor reviews, as it doesn't leave a good first impression. Also, Doon Mackichan is, surprisingly, a bit weak through some parts of the movie, which is a shame as Fiona Allen and Sally Phillips are on top form. Oh, and the tag-line "does my Gluteus Maximus look big in this?" isn't funny, and it under-sells the film. But these are all minor points, and don't really detract from the entertainment.

The reviewer who commented on the "odd feminism" in the film has, in my opinion, firmly grabbed the wrong end of his stick (or has problems listening to women as equals). If he was expecting a sexy women-in-leather soft porn, this film happily isn't that. It isn't a chick-flick either- you don't have to be one gender or the other to laugh at this film.

In a nutshell, if you liked "Shaun Of The Dead", and/or "Smack The Pony" on TV, this is worth hunting down a copy of. I eventually had to get a legitimate DVD copy from the Netherlands in order to see it- this film is too good to go unnoticed!

The idiotic cover almost stopped me from watching the movie, because it seemed to indicate this could be moronic rubbish like "Meet the Spartans" again, but fortunately it's something completely different. First, they really got their historical background right. The explanation how the Romans could conquer Gallia and Britannia - not simply by brute force, but let proxies fight their wars for them and fight tribes separately which were enemies of each other - is given better than in most serious movies about that period. Asking the question "were some slaves actually satisfied with their primitive life without any rights"? like Worthaboutapig is probably more realistic than the heroic rebels of Spartacus movies, since Spartacus was the exception not the rule when it comes to self-sacrifice, but it's all quite politically incorrect to ask, I bet.

This is one of the funniest movies I've watched in the last couple of years. It's dominated by three women who fight against all odds ("I must warn you, I'm a Celtic warrior princess. I can kill a man in 17 different ways. 18, if you include cooking") which is of course unusual in the genre but works extremely well since their characters are so extremely different. Hide the DVD from your girlfriend, though, it may give her ideas...

OK, I had several advantages in watching Gladiatress...

• I had read the terrible reviews and had the lowest possible expectations, so I wasn't going to be disappointed.

• I watched it with a glass of good wine and in the company of two friends who had happy memories of their fun time as extras (and we even managed to catch glimpses of them) - I recognised every single location shot - all within a few miles of my home So, you have to weigh this when I say we all enjoyed it. We all laughed aloud lots of times.

It also looks great. Much higher production values than you'd expect for a movie of this type. Partly this is down having borrowed equipment and costumes from the multi zillion dollar Gladiator. But it is also a well-made movie in its own right (OK, it's not Once upon a Time in the West - but neither is it On The Buses).

And Sally Phillips is just scrummy. She can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. And, apparently, she is a very nice person too.

So... this is never going to be on anyone's Top Ten, but give it a chance. I think some of the negativity it's had is completely over the top. I hope it does get a theatrical release - I think it deserves that.

On the video cover, there's a back view of a girl in a short Roman skirt, and some text which says, "Does my Gluteus Meximus look big in this?"

That one costume, and that one joke, is better than anything in the entire movie. I swear, it made me wonder of it's so much to ask that watching a movie be at least as entertaining as looking at the cover.

All the women, even in the actual arena, are fully clothed in baggy fur. The sets are obviously cheep, jokes are just bad, it seems to have been made by people who don't know anything about movies.

There's one good scene;

In this movie the Tpits are depicted as always wearing severed rotting human heads around their necks like necklaces. In one scene the 3 (three) main characters are disguising themselves as 2 (two) Tpits. The first one has an actual head around her neck, but the second one has the third one standing inside her clothes pretending to be a severed head.

I recommend instead;

The Arena

Sparticus

Monty Python's Holy grail

Hadn't heard anything about this film but spotted that it had most of the cast from Smack The Pony so thought it might be worth a watch. I felt it wasn't as funny as the their series, which I think is just OK. The story ans script are very poor. I watched some of the extras and they talk about how quickly the guy wrote it, well it shows. Not to mention that I don't believe the port of Deal is between Ramsgate and Sandwich, but then again I don't think they were going for accuracy ;) However, despite all that I thought it was entertaining. I think it boils down to the fact that those girls just make me laugh, just them standing in a muddy field amuses me!?? Would I recommend it? Well probably not, I think you'd be better off getting an old Blackadder out, same type of jokes but at least they were original 15 years ago.