Capitán América y El Santo contra Spiderman

In the world of Turkish cinema, Spider-Man leads a gang of counterfeiter who use murders people with outboar dmotors, axes and man-eating guinea pigs. Santo is a secret agent who rarely wears his mask and puts things directly into his pants, pockets by damned. And Captain America doesn't have a shield, smokes and brings his girlfriend, Julia, along.

Just strap yourself in — 3 Giant Men is a ride into insanity, the kind of world that Sergeant Joe Friday worried about when kids in the 60's started doing LSD and jumping out of windows.

Istanbul! The Spider's Gang — led by Spider-Man — are taking over. They cut the head off of a woman with a boat propeller to start the movie off right.

The film then kicks into the craziest title sequence ever — they basically filmed a board of photographs, pulling out on image after image, with the type for each credit simply vinyl type on a board.

Julia, Captain America's girlfriend, is captured but is able to send a distress call to Cap, who rescues her but can't catch Spider-Man after a battle through a graveyard. Captain America is played by Aytekin Akkaya, who was Ali in Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (better known as Turkish Star Wars) and Ukan in Yor, the Hunter from the Future.

I'd like to inform all of you right now that Spider-Man has the biggestt eyebrows you've ever seen. He can also die and come back to life with no lasting damage, for some reason. He also gets his men to drop off what I can only refer to as mini-tents near mafia bases, emerging from them to kill other gangs.

Meanwhile, Santo infiltrates a dojo known for counterfeiting. Santo's fight style is to basically no sellkicks to the face and do rolls and judo. So, you know, nothing at all like he real Santo. He also likes to look right at the camera whenever he is film. I could watch Santo fight karate men for hours and hours of my life. Santo gets captured, but escapes with the evidence. He and Cap raid a hideout while Spider-Man kills a woman in the shower.

Spidey calls out the dude who let Santo escape, punishing him by putting a tube over his head and letting two guinea pigs EAT HIS FACE. Sorry to scream, this movie this movie is just one shock after the other. Spidey tops it off by watching couple shower (!), killing them by stabbing them together ala Jason Vorhees to Jeff and Sandra in Friday the 13th Part 2 (!!) and then stealing a statue that has no importance toward the rest of the movie (!!!).

Yes. If you are keeping score, Spider-Man has two different shower based kill scenes in this movie. If you like your Peter Parker murderous, then this flick is for you. But wait what would make this movie better? If you answered watching Spider-Man have sex while surrounded by frightening puppets, then you are on the same wavelength as the insane people who made this movie. You should really speak to someone or be on one of this lists where you have to announce yourself to all of your neighbors when you move.

Santo and Captain America then battle Spider-Man again, where we find out that there are four Spideys, several of which die horribly. After some undercover work at a club — the same club we keep seeing with a girl in shadow spinning boob tassles — Spider-Man's goons kidnap our heroes. They fight one another, but it's all a clever ruse, as they kill almost all of the gang members, including Spider-Man's girlfriend (who is not Mary Jane Watson, Gwen Stacy, Felicia Hardy, Betty Brant, Carlie Cooper or Liz Allen).

There's a battle that doesn't stop until every Spider-Man is dead. Spideys get knocked off ladders, their necks broken and crushed by presses. It's an orgy of Spider destruction, highlighted by Captain America's trademark offense: one footed dropkicks , face slaps and punches to the belly.

But just as Cap is about to leave town, he sees one more Spidey. However, it's just a kid in a mask.

I don't know if it's possible to love a movie as much as I love 3 Giant Men. Today's superhero movies fail to capture the majesty of this film. It answers the big questions, the ones no one had the guts to ask or care about. Cap punching Spider in the breadbasket? It's in there. Santo powerbombing goons and then putting them into submission holds in a nightclub? Yes. Wacky asides with comical music? Yes. A Cap that smokes and wears a leisure suit? Evet.

3 Giant Men comes in at 78 minutes of what I can only imagine being in a coma and pumped full of iowaska would feel like. Everyone knows all about Japanese Spider-Man Takuya Yamashiro (they do, right?), but laughing, killing, giant eyebrow having Turkish Spider-Man? He is the greatest villain ever in the best superhero movie ever made.

So here's an odd movie. Spider Man is a bad guy. And his mask is radically different. And he has these massive eyebrows--or maybe they were antenna? Anyhow, this has nothing to do with everybody's favorite webslinger. Technically, he is called Spider Man and kinda dresses like him, but instead uses the awesome powers of a switchblade to kill people and steal statues. Oh, and I think he can clone himself whenever he dies. Maybe. Didn't make much sense at the time.

Come to combat this villain are the awesome duo of Captain America and El Santo. For those of you not up on your lucha libre, El Santo is the most famous Mexican wrestler of all time, having starred in approximately 100 movies in his forty-year career. The silver-masked man revealed his identity only a month before he died and was laid to rest in his cloak and cowl. Anyhow, they're fighting Spider Man. At least Captain America (not an American by any means) is, since El Santo isn't in this too much. After a few rumbles, good is triumphant.

Worth a see? Definitely, if you like your cheese thick and incomprehensible (as detailed previously, there are no English dubbed or subtitled prints). It's no classic, but it is fun if you've got a wad of meat in each shoe (I never did understand that saying). Don't look too hard, but if you're in the back of a small, locally owned video store and this falls off a shelf onto your head, rent it.

I've heard a lot about this movie, and it's one of those you'd have to watch it to believe, cause what I'm about to describe sounds baffling for a movie like this to exist.

Spider Man who was known as a hero in America is portrayed as a villain in this movie. In a poorly designed costume with no eye pieces to cover his actual eyes. The one thing that makes this Spider-Man look unusual is his large eye lashes. I don't think Spider Man has ever been depicted that way in any comic from my knowledge. Anyways Spider Man is causing crime in Turkey so Captain America and Santos(yes as in the wrestler) came to Turkey to defeat him.

Not a lot to say about it other than it's unusual and low budget. Every the opening of the movie was low budget. The one thing I'd love to know is does Spider-Man have a good reputation in Turkey or is this how people see Spider Man in Turkey. I don't know that answer for sure. Cause I wonder if the Director or writer of this movie have anything against Spider-Man. No one knows for sure, so all I could do is speculate that the director and writer hated him so much they decided to make a movie to show every one in Turkey how horrible he is. But why's Captain America portray as good and not Spider Man. They're from the same comic company. While Santos was thrown in cause he's a big celebrity in the country of Turkey.

For die hard Spider-Man fans this is a laugh riot and to non fans of Spider-Man this is still funny to watch.

Turkish cinema, gotta love it. Where else in the world can you get copyright infringement films that make you smile from ear to ear? In this film Marvel Comics hero Spiderman becomes a bad guy trying to take over the world. He is battled by Captain America (in possibly the best suit every put on screen) and Santo, the Mexican wrestler and movie star. The action is great as is some of nastiness that Spidey inflicts on his victims (The opening boat propeller to the face is a nice touch). As Turkish superhero movies go its pretty good, though the print I saw was sans any English so it was hard to know what was going on and it made the dialog scenes drag.

Not the best of the Turkish cinema I've run across, and certainly not the worst. If you run across it and are curious about the madness that Turkish film makers have unleashed on their audiences give it a try. Also give it a try if you're a comic book fan who worries what Hollywood will do to your favorite creation. One Look at this film and you'll never complain they got something wrong again.

One of the most auspicious movie starts in history, yet a walk in the park for movies coming out of Turkey. I thought I had seen everything Turkey had to offer. From Turkish Star Trek and Star Wars to Turkish Superman to Turkish Young Frankenstein. I was not prepared for a mostly green Spiderman, with a red hood and giant, untrimmed eyebrows.

This isn't your Marvel Spiderman though. Turkish Spiderman is leader of a gang. His whole racket involves smuggling artifacts from Turkey to the US, selling them cheaply to dealers and then buying them back with fake money. The opening scene is of Spidey and his gang building a hole in the sand, dropping some woman in a night gown into it and then pushing a boat (the motor is on, propeller spinning) into her face. The Spider (as he is called in Turkey) has no powers whatsoever. He knows movie martial arts, is quite the escape artist and tends to sneak up on people. His primary weapons include a 2-inch knife, a shower head, shish-kabobing people and a complicated torture device involving hamsters. Welcome to Turkey !!

Aytekin Akkaya is Turkish Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America (minus a shield which would have cost extra). You may remember him from Turkish Star Wars. Sadly I cannot forget seeing his shirtless performance as he bounced around on the screen. His partners include a luchidore who stores everything in the crotch of his tights and a female secretarial assistant (who does most of the undercover work). Their mission is to stop the Green menace (thank you Jonas).

This is truly an exercise in Turkish 70's film making. Turkish movies often remind me of the old movie serials (Flash Gordon, Batman and Robin,etc). They seem to be made on the cheap, poorly edited, poorly acted and done very quickly, often with little regard for intellectual property (the music seems to be from a James Bond movie). It is as if this is Turkey's attempt at mimicking the exploitation movies coming out of the US and/or the martial arts movies coming out of Asia. Exploitation is definitely what this movie is going for. It has all the elements for grind-house: a striptease (with pasties), graphic violence, shower scenes in underwear, crappy disco music, sex and alcohol. Well what did you expect, Turkey is a much different place? What was tame for us was probably raunchy for them. Context people, context.

As with all the 70's Turkish movies I have seen, I cannot take them seriously. I find them quite amusing along with the lingering misogynistic undertones (seems like more women died in this movie than men). There also seems to be a lot of time spent in showing running, driving and chasing. If you have never seen a Turkish movie, try to get one with the appropriate subtitles. Understanding the dialog will only help you slightly, as the plots and edits are "complicated" (not to mention the cultural differences). I have seen Turkish movies without the subtitles and I can tell you it gets pretty confusing (Turkish Star Wars, I'm looking at you).

These movies would have been prime candidates for MST3k. If only that were still possible. Maybe in an alternate universe. Until then, make mine a double whiskey. It's for the pain.