Herkules, der Held von Karthago

Revenge Of Ursus stars Canadian bodybuilder Samson Burke playing a superhero who wants to retire to his farm like Cincinnatus. But like Michael Corleone, they keep dragging him back in.

Ursus has an Opie like little brother in this film and they're both involved in the politics of two city states where the king of one state wants to marry the daughter of the king of the state where Ursus lives.

It's a political marriage in every sense of the word. A tyrant to his own people, the bad king desires nothing less than to marry the daughter then kill the father and claim both states. He's a Snidely Whiplash villain if I ever saw one.

This one is a little bit better than most of the peplum's I've been viewing lately.

Ursus (Samson Burke) fights evil King Zagro (Livio Lorenzon) who wants to enlarge his kingdom considerably by killing another king and marrying a princess.

Okayish sword & sandals movie with the usual heroic scenes (Ursus is breaking chains, makes an elephant walk backwards and wins fights against any number of opponents). Samson Burke, it must be said though, isn't much of an actor. Also we get the typical annoying little boy brother he needs to rescue every now and then. On the other hand, Gianni Rizzo plays a twisted greedy character very effectively again - ready to change from the losing to the winning side. And Livio Lorenzon gets the best line in the script, replying when begged not to harm Ursus: 'I'm not going to harm him. I'm going to kill him!'

I'm not saying it's awful, but it's nothing to brag about. It's a typical, standard, low budget people of the time era of the peplum hype.

King Zagro is evil and has his "evil eyes" on Princess Sira. He wants to marry her and take over her kingdom. Sira is kidnapped, Ursus hears of it and races to save her from Zagro. Ursus then leads the revolt against Zagro.

It plays out very boringly. Nothing to see here unless you just like to watch Samson Burke half naked and showing off his pecks almost all of the time throughout the film.

2/10

Samson Burke (he of "Hercules Meets the 3 Stooges" fame), lantern-jawed and broad of back, plays the mythological Ursus, a man with a past, which is only hinted at in the beginning. He now farms with his puckish little brother, Durias, until called upon to confront the evil and scheming King Zagro and his toady, Lycurgas who are plotting to take over the neighboring kingdom of Leecha, through a marriage with King Altheus' lovely (in a 1960's Italian kind-of-way) daughter, Sirah (whew). The plot has lots of action, moves along swiftly, and as these things go, is "not bad", aided by the hero's skillful execution of flying drop kicks, airplane spins, and other impressive TV wrestling moves, and ending up with an early version of an Ironman Event, to test the truthfulness of Ursus' version of events (the schemers beg to differ). One small disconcerting note: the princess' voice sounds remarkably like it is dubbed by Kathy Lee Gifford.

Ursus is a farmer with a past that he won't tell his little brother. When a Princess he knows is attacked on the way to her wedding Ursus , with little brother in tow, head off to protect the fair maiden. Of course there are plots within plots so the simple drop off the princess trip becomes something else entirely.

This is a very good swords and sandal movie that has a lot going for it. A reasonably complicated plot, good acting, and excellent action sequences that make it appear that the filmmakers at least understood the value of decent production values. This is one that's worth watching if you run across it.

A Word of Warning: I've seen this film at least twice now and the prints, the Sinister Cinema print in particular, are extremely choppy, so much so that as much as ten minutes or more may have been lost to the bad nature of the prints.