Os Sete Magníficos Gladiadores

The mighty Lou Ferrigno stars in this swords & sandal take on Akira Kurosawa's classic The Seven Samurai, brought to us in this case by the ever maligned Bruno Mattei.

Big Lou's mission, along with his assembled warriors, is to defend a small village from the annual onslaught of a sadistic immortal and his cronies. To aid him in his task, Lou wields a magic sword, a sword in fact that only he can hold and formerly the trusted side arm of none other than Achilles - or so we're told.

Cue plenty of fairly enjoyable (if slightly handled) battles as our hero's fight for justice on behalf of the victimised community.

OK despite the title this is sadly most definitely NOT magnificent stuff, but it is nonetheless a harmless enough way to pass an hour and a half or so. Besides, how can any man really complain when none other than the gorgeous (and wonderfully buxom!) Sybil Danning is present?!

Not all of them can be winners, even Buñuel and Fernando de Fuentes had their own lower tier films, while this isn't exactly on the same level as La hija del engaño (1951) or something like that it's still a very tepid entry for Mattei, devoid of life and stimulating ideas, it never rises above being a slightly above average peplum/Conan rehash/parody. Mattei and Fragasso only made one of these after all.

Bruno, predictably, has zero interest in this story and directs a lot of the action sequences with laziness and carelessness, which sort of works considering the style of his oeuvre as in that the parodic elements and complete degradation of the genres and subjects he touches can easily flourish even on auto-pilot but this outing lacks compelling images, expressive touches and a cohesive sense of direction that typically unites all of the elements of a good film, things we usually find on Mattei films but not here, making it one of his least interesting ones.

The first person sequence with Sybil Danning and a couple of the delirious scenes kind of bring this one up a notch but the poor budget restricts much of it. With the classically mostly static camera, the kitschy outfits and the abundant wide shots that capture the fights, one can understand that it's totally a peplum send up, after all, it's on Italy's DNA regardless of whether or not they try to rip-off Conan. As its own peplum tribute/parody it works just fine even in its poor condition.

When Conan the Barbarian became a hit in 1982, the Italians where superbly equipped to exploit that fad with a vengeance given their long history of producing bad Hercules and Hercules rip off films. Directed by Italian schlockmaster, Bruno Mattei (Rats Night of Terror, Robowar, Cruel Jaws), it features terrible dubbing, some nice actual Roman ruins for outdoor sets (they already existed and were likely free), the incomparable bad acting team of Lou Ferrigno AND Sybil Danning (who were also both in the Italian 1983 Hercules film), and it has a women's wresting scene where the competitors wear some very non-Roman tiny gold bikinis. The plot is pretty straight forward. Good guy (Ferrigno) gets a magic sword, recruits a team of gladiators, which includes sword & sandal veteran Brad Harris, and kills of a bunch of bad guys terrorizing a group of women. My personal favorite scene is when the "Emperor" tries to wield the magic sword, gets burned since he is not "divine" like Ferrigno. As the Emperor is wildly over acting getting "burned" by the magic sword handle, his cheap plastic crown falls off his head and bounces down a bunch of steps making very audible noises which clearly indicate the crown is very much made of plastic. The film does drag in places, but overall it's an entertaining piece of garbage for bad film fans and fans of director Bruno Mattei's work.

Move over Kurosawa and Sturges, Bruno "SS Girls" Mattei has got this. Basically the old Seven Samurai plot reworked for ancient Roman times. A demigod douchebag is terrorizing frightened villagers. So some of the village women go and get a magic sword that only one man can wield (heard that before?). Then they recruit Lou Ferrigno, Brad Harris, sexy Sybil Danning, and a few forgettable types to help fight the villain.

Reunites the stars of Cannon's Hercules movie, released the same year. It's directed with what can only honestly be called a complete absence of talent. Badly acted, badly dubbed, with stunt choreography that appears to have been made up on the spot not unlike my brother & I play fighting as kids using sticks as swords. Filmed in Italy and utilizing actual ruins as sets, this should have at least had some local flavor or scenic appeal going for it. But nope. I wanted to like it in spite of itself, but it's just not that much fun.

The problem with this movie is not that it rehashes the plot of "The Magnificent Seven"; after all, even that movie was a remake of something else ("The Seven Samurai", which I have not seen yet). The problem is that it rehashes it in a plodding and unimaginative fashion. The main difference between the two movies (besides the obviously lower production quality, of course) is that "The Magnificent Seven" were interesting, intelligent and articulate characters; "The Seven Magnificent Gladiators" are 5 primitive muscleheads, a rookie, and a warrior woman (Sybil Danning). The fight scenes are mostly Bud-Spencer-and-Terence-Hill-do-sword-and-sorcery-style. And being this a PG film, it completely lacks any of the blood and nudity usually found in the genre. A sensuous (but brief) female bikini wrestling match is as risqué, and as thrilling, as it gets here, folks (and no, Sybil is not featured in it). (**)