Conquérants héroïques

It's easy to forget, when watching the worst or campiest entries in the sword & sandal genre, that the Italians also produced serious historical epics in the 1960s. Here, Steve Reeves reprises his role as Aeneas, whom he previously played in the superb THE Trojan HORSE (LA GUERRA DI TROIA).

Having survived the destruction of his city, the Trojan noble and a band of survivors have made their way to Italy, where they hope to create a new life for themselves. But the region is already populated by various tribes, ruled by warlords, and Aeneas's longing for peace cannot be accomplished without recourse to battle and bloodshed.

The screenwriters take their inspiration from Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid. The scale of the sets and the rustic costumes evoke a convincing atmosphere of Bronze Age Italy. (Small details like the king's peculiar-looking crown are based on authentic artifacts). The curious customs of the natives have the ring of historical truth; the bird-shooting contest on horseback is a brilliant bit of cinema.

A part of Steve Reeves' notable legacy as a performer was his portrayal of three of the great hero figures of the ancient Greek and Roman world: Hercules (in two films), Romulus (in DUEL OF THE TITANS/ROMOLO E REMO), and Aeneas (in two films). Of the three, his Aeneas is the most complex, admirable, and ultimately heroic.

THE LAST GLORY OF TROY - aka WAR OF THE Trojans, aka THE AVENGER - is the sequel to THE WOODEN HORSE OF TROY, a film that portrayed the Trojan War and also starred Steve Reeves as the eponymous hero Aeneas. This time around, the Trojans are a defeated people, having fled from their sacked city, but a mixture of courage and cunning sees them go on to found what is modern-day Rome.

Unfortunately THE LAST GLORY OF TROY is a somewhat lacklustre sequel that more often than not is a rather BORING peplum flick. It has relatively lengthy running time, and much of that running time is made up of small talk between dull characters. Even Steve Reeves doesn't have much of a part to play here, feeling like a supporting character in his own movie, although the cast is populated with familiar faces including Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Liana Orfei and Gianni Garko.

The film does pick up for its second half, offering a handful of battle sequences, although the choreography isn't particularly great in these. But it lacks the tight script and focus of the first film and with six different scriptwriters credited it feels like a bit of a confused mess, struggling to make sense of itself.

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

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.

The Avenger covers the story of Aeneas and how he led some survivors of Troy into exile on the Italian peninsula. Steve Reeves repeats his role Aeneas from The Trojan War as the exiled Trojans look to make a new home.

Unfortunately in Etruscan Italy their addition complicates what looks like a delicately balanced situation among a lot of petty kings. One of them covets the land the Trojans have been granted on to settle.

In the tradition of the Trojan War the film is cut above a lot of the Peplum epics that the Italians were churning out in the early 60s, taking advantage of those sets left over from Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis. It's all based on Virgil's Aeneid.

And we get to see more of Steve Reeves physical development. That's what many were plunking their money down to see/