Sergio Leone (One of my all time favorite Directors) is famous for making classic Spaghetti western such as "Once Upon a Time in The West" and "The Dollars Trilogy" starring Clint Eastwood as "The Man With No Name". His directing style and techniques are incredible and are still used in films today. Sergio's first film that he directed solo however, wasn't a western it was actually an ancient Greek film called...
An Athenian war hero named Darios (Rory Callhoun)
is on holiday in Rhodes to visit his Uncle
Lissipu (George Rigaud) and see the finished colossal statue of the god Apollo.
However, Darios suddenly becomes involved into two plots to overthrow the
tyrannical king. Darios helps the rebels, led by Peliocles(George
Marchal) to overthrow the king and free the slaves. However, he has a
love interest with Diala (Lea Massari), the daughter of the statues
mastermind, who is on the villain’s side, lead by the king's second in command
Thar (Conrado San Martin).
Our hero Darios has to be one of the best underrated heroes
of all time. He's smart, he's slick, he can fight, and is willing to help the
rebels even if it means risking his own life and leaving his girlfriend behind.
When I first met the character, I was actually attached to him and liked his
character more and more as the film went on. Rory Callhoun does an excellent
job portraying the character; however, I did think his acting was a bit out of
place. Most of the acting in this film has a mellow ancient Greek tone and
while his was not over the top, he just stuck out like a swore thumb. His
acting wasn't bad, it was just different than all the other actors in this
film. Then again, a lot of others great films based on that time did make
their main characters stick out and act different than most of the characters
in those type of films, like Charlton Heston in "Ben-Hur" or
"The Ten Commandments" for example.
The supporting characters in the film are well acted but are
some how forgettable. They're not bland or have no character, they do have
character but some how they're just forgetful. The villain has great evil plans
but he's not that interesting. The rebel leader is as cool and smart as Darios
but his personality is boring. Characters like the King (Roberto Camardiel),
Lissipu, and Mirte (Mabel Karr) are good characters but show up only for a
few times in the film. The only character I can remember perfectly is Darios's
love interest Diala. Her character just keeps you guessing and guessing
until the end. At first she's toying with Darios; then later on they're in love;
then they have a forbidden love; then she's on the villains side; and you're
not sure if she's working with or against the villain. I don't just find
the character interesting but I also find the love between our characters
interesting as well.
I think what really holds the film is the action. This film
is just full of action from beginning to end. Some of it looks very cool like
in the rebel break out scene, the arena scene, and the fight in the statue. The
fights are choreographed well; the cinematography is cool and suspenseful; and
some of the stabbing and whipping looks intense. With all that said, some
of the fights do look campy. In some scenes when they fight with hand to hand
combat, some of the fighting looks real but mostly you can tell when there's a
fake punch. In the scene with the rebels try to kidnap Darios, the
fighting choreography looks neat but there were so many noticeable fake
punches that I was expecting a pun word to pop out, like in the campy Batman TV show starring Adam West. In scenes when they're throwing knives at guards, most
of the time I didn't believe a person was actually stabbed and when you do see
the knife in their back they're expressions are a bit cartoony! Even in other scenes
when they're hit with arrows look like something from a "Looney
Tunes" Cartoon. In scenes when people are being tortured are intense but
not enough to cover your eyes, but then again I'm not going to go that deep
into the torture scenes because after all you really couldn't get away with
that much with violence at the time.
The Special effects in the film are a lot like the action in
the film, looks cool at times but can be campy. Let's start with the campiness.
In the scene when of our heroes was dangling above Lions, I didn't really
believe the character was really above lions. The scene when the boats on fire,
was a cool effect but I didn't believe the people on the boat were on fire.
However, with all that bashing, I still thought the special effects look cool
such as some of the Statues traps or the fight on the arms of the statue for
example. The best part for the special effects was the earthquake scene. When I
saw those buildings coming down, I didn't think those were models, I actually
thought those buildings were falling down while you see people running in the background.
The cinematography and sets are really a sight to look at. The sets are cool and look exactly like the ancient Greek times and on top of that you got Sergio's cinematography to make it look good. What I really thought was amazing was their recreation of the statue. It really does look cool. Even the inside of the statue looks amazing. My personal favorite scenes for the set designs is the Mummy Tomb scene and when Darious sneaks into Diala's room.
The Music adds to the films tone and atmosphere. In the scene when someone tries to poison the king, the music gets thrilling. When ever there's a battle, the music help makes it epic. The music, sadly is not very memorable but it does add to the films tone. While I'm on the topic of music, I just want to add I enjoyed the traditional dance scenes for when ever there's a party or a ceremony, even if they are shown for a short amount of time.
My final thoughts on the film is it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be bad. Granted it's weird seeing a Spaghetti western master direct a roman film but a directors has to start somewhere and it's not a bad start. Sure, it has it's flaws and the films a bit campy but it's still a good ancient Greek movie. I was entertained by this movie from start to finish and I'm glad I saw it.
RATING 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment