Italian Spiderman

If you're a fan of silly Aussie TV series Danger 5 then there's a good chance that you'll also enjoy this earlier effort from director Dario Russo. It's more silly than surreal, but it does a great job of parodying its chosen genre: the pulpy '60s/'70s foreign action adventures that gave their own unauthorised spin on popular American superheroes.

The basic plot goes something like this: Italian Spiderman (David Ashby) is a macho crime-fighter who loves his women, his macchiato coffee, and his cigarettes. He leaps into action after master criminal Captain Maximum breaks into the lab of Professor Bernardi and steals an asteroid that possesses the power to replicate living creatures, including humans.

Russo captures the look and feel of the era brilliantly, with grainy, saturated photography, wild editing, cheesy action, hot babes, bad special effects, and a groovy soundtrack. The fun includes a thoroughly unconvincing motorbike chase scene, a surf challenge between Spiderman and Captain Maximum that involves bikini babes and penguins, a cool psychedelic sequence, and a brutal showdown in a quarry that sees our hero single handedly taking on Maximum's henchmen before blowing the main bad guy sky high. Just like the real thing, the whole affair is blessed with an irresistible lack of logic.

7/10, plus a bonus point for Professor Bernardi's sexy daughter Jessica and his tasty lab assistant Judy. Minus one point, however, for the irritating 'shocked' character who wobbles his head from side to side. So that's 7/10 then!

Loved it! Gotta give it a 9/10 though cause despite being mentioned in the trailer, there was no goblin at all in the movie.

I've never seen anything this beatiful in my entire life before.

Right, so...........Italian Spiderman. Where in the blue hell would I start with this one?

This Australian made 40 minute short movie plays out like a 1960's exploitation movie complete with cinematography effects. It tells the story (And I use that term very loosely) of Italian Spiderman a dumpy superhero with undefined super powers taking on his evil luchador nemesis.

Though it looks Grindhouse it's a comedy even more ridiculous than the Airplane (1980) movies. It's not so much slapstick as it is random, weird and intentionally baffling. I see what they were doing and truth be told I often enjoy that horror, but here it just failed to hit the mark.

To its credit it's such an odd movie it is undeniably memorable. From the ridiculous dialogue to the hilariously intentionally bad sfx to the deeply moronic lead.

Again I get what they were trying to do but I couldn't get behind it. If something is going to be silly then it needs to be funny and very little was here.

The Good:

A couple of funny moments

Truly original

The Bad:

Most jokes miss their mark

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I don't remember microscopes working that way

Sin Cara likes frog porn

ITALIAN SPIDERMAN is absolutely hilarious from the first frame to that last. And it's totally original and unique. It's definitely worth checking out. Anyone and everyone should be thoroughly entertained by this gem.

Made my some Australians, it passes itself off as a garish take on Spiderman through the lens of a group of Italian filmmakers from the 1970's. It uses all the filmmaking tricks and styles of that era, sometimes to the extreme in order to get big laughs, but never lets that get in the way. It's laughs all the way. Some will enjoy it more than others, but all will have a good time. Highly recommend.