Conquérants héroïques

I haven't seen too many of these Italian sword and sandal movies that were so popular in the 1960s, but I feel pretty confident with my guess that experts of this genre would consider this entry to be a below average entry. The biggest problem that this movie has is that it is more often than not gosh-darn DULL. Especially the first half of the movie, which is talk talk talk and with almost no action. The second half of the movie slightly improves things - there is a lot of action. Unfortunately, the action is choreographed and directed in a way that saps out all excitement, instead generating a matter-of-fact feeling. Fans of Steve Reeves will be disappointed by the fact that he doesn't get to do a lot that is heroic, instead almost coming across as a secondary character. I will say that the movie does boast some good production values, but this eye candy does little to keep the audience awake.

I saw "The Trojan Horse" a few months ago, the version starring Steve Reeves and I enjoyed it. It's one of the best Sword & Sandals. I thought it was more successful than Robert Wise's HELEN OF TROY or the recent bloated version starring Brad Pitt, which is best forgotten. Wise's HELEN OF TROY is a sharply directed film that's hampered by a lack luster script and a freadfully dull ending. After enjoying the Steve Reeves version of the famous Greek story, I was ready to watch the sequel, "The War of the Trojans".

Though another Steve Reeves film like GOLIATH & THE BARBARIANS might be more entertaining to most viewers, the cheese factor keeps it from being a great film. Well this isn't the case with "The War of the Trojans". The cheese factor is very low and the direction is taught and tight. The story is somewhat predictable, certainly for someone who recently watched something like 75 S&S films in a few months but even the familiar storyline wasn't enough to diminish the film's impact.

The story continues right after the excellent "The Trojan Horse", when the fleeing people of Troy arrive in Italy and try to settle there. Problems arise when the King of a nearby Kingdom grants the people of Troy the right to live near the Tiber river. In-fighting within the Kingdom, lead by Turno, who sees the Trojans as a threat, creates a scheme to make the Trojans look evil. A war between the Trojans and the Kingdom erupts. Losing the battle, the Trojans, lead by Aeneas (played by the legendary Steve Reeves), become allies with the Etruscans, the sworn enemies of the Kingdom. The neverending battle causes a lot of deaths and casualties on both sides. Desperate to end the war, both sides agree to settle the war with a duel between Aeneas and Turno.

The beginning is talky but it's worth staying on for what's to come. Here's a short list of memorable scenes: when Aeneas sees the mural which recounts the battle of Troy, with flashbacks from "The Trojan Horse". For once, flashbacks from another movie actually work here; the archery duel; the scene with the wild boars; the killing of Eurialo; the duel at the end.

The cast is surprisingly good, with memorable characterization by the Queen and King Turno. The Queen is unforgettable, whoever played her. And King Turno is well played by Gianni Garko. Fans of SPACE 1999 will recognize Garko, who was Toni Cellini in the famous DRAGON'S DOMAIN episode. The only really weak part of the cast is Camilla, the young Amazonian woman. The purpose of her character is interesting but her dated hairstyle and appearance are the only incongruous elements in the film. The sets look real. Yes, it's not as spectacular and elaborate as "The Trojan Horse" but it doesn't need big moments to demonstrate the struggle of the displaced Trojan people which lead to the creation of Rome. And the score is excellent, one of the best I've heard in a Peplum. But the thing that tie all this beautifully together is the mature and assured direction. The compositions and constant smooth tracking shots give the film a greater professional look/feel than most films of the genre, which are often described static. Many moments could have easily turned into typical Peplum camp or silliness but here they were sharply set-up, creating tense or genuine emotional moments up to end. And one feels they actually learned something about history too. The film is believable too, which is no mean feat for a Sword & Sandal film.

I've watched many S&S films recently and this one stands out from the pack. It's clearly overlooked. People must have had Peplum fatigue back then for this film to be forgotten as it is now.

"The Trojan Horse" and "War of the Trojans" make an excellent double bill, for fans of Steve Reeves but history buffs as well.

Yes Steve Reeves has done better movies. Maybe just his presence here will make you feel differently about this (and the rating I and many others have given). But if you try to be as objective as possible, this does not really stand out against most of the other Sword and Sandals movies .. it isn't the worst either of course, but there are so many ... it's exhausting.

So yes this is a Trojan story or some resemblance of that. It may even continue from another movie as another reviewer has suggested. Nothing of that seems to be needed to get the gist of it all. Fight scenes are ok, not anything to get too excited about either

At the beginning there are some flashbacks about Aeneas and the Trojan war . As the Greek warriors under the command of Ulysses get to hide out in the Troyan horse with his fellow soldiers and get those Trojans when they take the wooden beast into their city . When they're successful and having survived the destruction of Troy , the nobleman Aeneas takes his men to getaway : Euryalus (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and Nisius (Benito Stefanelli) , as the survivors deciding to go off , making their way to Italy and found the city of Rome . As Aeneas leads escapees from the Trojan war to new land in Italy , and must deal with new threats to his people , as the powerful Aeneas and his mighty sword avenged a nation . This time muscleman Aeneas/Steve Reeves , helped by the Etruscos , leads the Trojans in battle against the Rutuli army commanded King Turno (Gianni Garco) .

This is supposedly a rendition of the Aeneid by Virgil . The film has neither expecting historical , not mythological accuracy . Acceptable Peplum with drama , noisy action , thrills , sword-fights , and resulting to be pretty entertaining . It's an adventure film with all the ingredients as sword-play , action , fights , betrayal , a love story and typical confrontation between good guys and bad guys . The film displays some impressive scenes about battles in spectacular style , including lots of extras . Here Steve Reeves plays Aeneas ; He-man Steve was a hunk who made great number of roman epic films also called ¨Musclemen movies¨ . He was the most known of a number of bodybuilder and physique model types in the early 60s and won campy notice playing Herculean characters in those campy Italian sand-and-spear epics . Ursus , Maciste , Goliath , Samson , Hércules , Atlas , Rocha ..., those Italian Muscle man producers must have had a hard time figuring out what to call the musclebound actors who played all these legendary muscleman heroes . Being other second-class Muscle men players the followings : Gordon Scott , Dan Vadis , Rock Stevens , Gordon Mitchell , Brad Harris , Samson Burke , Reg Park , Ed Fury , Richard Harrison , Kirk Morris , Alan Steel or Sergio Ciani and subsequently Lou Ferrigno . As Reeves played various Sword and Sandal movies , such as : ¨The Trojan horse¨ , and his sequel : ¨The avenger¨ , ¨The giant of Marathon¨ , ¨Goliat and the Barbarians¨ , ¨The last days of Pompeii¨ , and especially ¨Hércules¨ and ¨Hércules unchained¨ by Pietro Francisci . Although Steve also played adventure genre as ¨Pirates of the seven seas¨ , ¨ The thief of Baghdad¨ and ¨Morgan the pirate¨ . Support cast is pretty good , such as : Gianni Garco : famous Spaghetti hero as Sartana , Liana Orfei , Nerio Bernardi , Ferrari , Enzo Fiermonte and the ordinary master of arms : Benito Stefanelli who also did some of the stunts , trained the other players in fencing and choreographed the battles .

The motion picture was regularly directed by Giorgo Rivalta who produced several adventure movies as : ¨Il Cavaliere Di Maison Rouge¨ , ¨La Vendetta Dei Tughs¨ , ¨Misteri Della Giungla Nera¨ , ¨Treasure of Bengala¨ , ¨I Piombi Di Venezia¨ , ¨Son of Lagardere¨ and ¨Le Marchand De Venise¨ and directed ¨Los Cosacos¨ , ¨Il Prigioniero Del Re¨ and ¨The avenger¨ . Being co-directed by veteran filmmaker Albert Band . Albert was one of Hollywood's most prolific filmmakers who started his career in the early 50s . He began financing a number of motion pictures through the seventies and seventies and directing in Italy some films as Spaghetti westerns : ¨The tramplers¨ and ¨Massacre in grand canyon¨ . Albert helped his son , Charles Band, bring together his own production company, 'Empire Pictures' , in the early eighties , producing/directing films as : ¨Zoltan hound of Drácula¨ , ¨Ghoulies¨ , ¨Doctor Mordrid¨ , ¨Robot Jox¨ , ¨Robot wars¨ . Upon the collapse of Empire Pictures in the early nineties, Band continued to work with his son and help bring a number of low-budget and medium budget films to the Hollywood screen and direct to video releases such as : ¨Pet Shop¨ , ¨Prehysteria! 1 and 2¨ , ¨Dragonworld¨ , ¨Oblivion¨ , ¨Remote¨ , ¨Trancers¨ series , among others.

This is an unnecessary and very much inferior sequel to THE Trojan HORSE (1961), evidently made on a reduced budget (though the murky, pan-and-scan print I watched certainly did no favors to it or the scenes from the original which were interspersed into the narrative as flashbacks!); Steve Reeves reprises his role of Enea - whose lineage, we are told, eventually led to Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome (incidentally, the actor appeared in a peplum about that very event called DUEL OF THE TITANS [1961]!) - but his performance here is somewhat mechanical and less convincing...though that may be due to the English dubbing, whereas I had watched the earlier film in Italian!!

As a whole, THE AVENGER (the print I watched bore the title THE LAST GLORY OF TROY, given to it when sold to TV) is only marginally better than the ordinary peplum: the plot is rather dreary this time around, in comparison to the fascinating events depicted in the original; the cast - despite the presence of Euro-Cult regulars like Gianni Garko (essaying the role of the villain) and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (effectively dispatched by a hail of arrows in the style of Akira Kurosawa's THRONE OF BLOOD [1957]!) - is less interesting; and the battle sequences are only memorable for the ridiculously-shaped helmets with which the warriors on both fronts are saddled!!