Gladiatress

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

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...

This is a very funny movie. Just finished watching it and can only say I was pleasantly surprised. It is full of little jokes, but unlike the moronic "meet the Spartans", these jokes are clever. Typical English wordplay and silly modern day parallels and plays on pretty much every cultural stereotype. It seems like this movie is full of strong fun roles for women and the guys just don't really count.

Italians speaka lika da pizzamanna.. its actually funny to see in a movie like this and Celtic warrior women looking for love in a very "special" way.

Considering the crap thats been coming out of Hollywood and labeled "comedy" its hard to imagine this one got overlooked.

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!

Great British Humour. Under rated to the Maximus.

I think this movie is hilarious. If you're well versed in History or the Roman Empire, you will get a good laugh out of this.

Gladiatress starts of as a typical British comedy, of the likes I haven't seen since Monty Python.

It's set in Britain, around the fall of the Gaul's and Caesars' interest in Britain grows. As he investigates further, he hears warrior princesses run Britain. He has to see this!! So, the story focuses on a little British tribe with pathetic men and Warrior women as leaders. Great show for you women out there. The story centers around 3 sisters, "Dwyfuc" the princess warrior of the tribe, "Worthaboutapig" who's worth about a pig, not less than a pig!! And "Smirgut the Fierce" who's loosing her fierceness because of childbirth.

When the Romans kidnap "Dwyfuc", her sister "Worthaboutapig" gets chosen to get her back. When "Smirgut the Fierce" helps her, there adventures land all 3 sisters in the gladiator ring facing "Schlaffwaffe The Goth". From there the plot just thickens!!