Gladiatress

Not brilliant, but definitely worth watching. British humor at it's almost best and a very feminine type of humor to, in the great tradition of Absolutely Faboulous and Bridget Jones. Girl Power comedy. I think it's wonderful that we have come that far that women can be portrayed as pathetic and miserable but still sympathetic, as they are in movies like Gladiatress and Bridget Jones Diaries. It's womens turn to be allowed to be ridiculous - a domain which has been strictly male dominated until recently.

Above all I like that the movie show how superior, in practically everything, except for farting, the Romans were. They were cleaner, ate better, behaved better and above all, they locked better. "What have the Romans ever given to us" - Life of Brian. British men don't get much credit in this one. The movies heretical mixture of past and present also makes it one of those few really good comedies that doesn't take itself too seriously without becoming just silly and boring.

Hadn't heard anything about this film but spotted that it had most of the cast from Smack The Pony so thought it might be worth a watch. I felt it wasn't as funny as the their series, which I think is just OK. The story ans script are very poor. I watched some of the extras and they talk about how quickly the guy wrote it, well it shows. Not to mention that I don't believe the port of Deal is between Ramsgate and Sandwich, but then again I don't think they were going for accuracy ;) However, despite all that I thought it was entertaining. I think it boils down to the fact that those girls just make me laugh, just them standing in a muddy field amuses me!?? Would I recommend it? Well probably not, I think you'd be better off getting an old Blackadder out, same type of jokes but at least they were original 15 years ago.

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!!

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

OK, I had several advantages in watching Gladiatress...

• I had read the terrible reviews and had the lowest possible expectations, so I wasn't going to be disappointed.

• I watched it with a glass of good wine and in the company of two friends who had happy memories of their fun time as extras (and we even managed to catch glimpses of them) - I recognised every single location shot - all within a few miles of my home So, you have to weigh this when I say we all enjoyed it. We all laughed aloud lots of times.

It also looks great. Much higher production values than you'd expect for a movie of this type. Partly this is down having borrowed equipment and costumes from the multi zillion dollar Gladiator. But it is also a well-made movie in its own right (OK, it's not Once upon a Time in the West - but neither is it On The Buses).

And Sally Phillips is just scrummy. She can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. And, apparently, she is a very nice person too.

So... this is never going to be on anyone's Top Ten, but give it a chance. I think some of the negativity it's had is completely over the top. I hope it does get a theatrical release - I think it deserves that.