Gor II

Ah, Gor. I really used to think Cave Dwellers was pretty crappy, but Outlaw of Gor makes me wish Ator could skewer Cabot while Thong pummels Watney Smith into submission. Having seen Outlaw several times, I must admit, it does tend to get better and you catch even more hilarity. The strange thing is that the humor is so unintentional since the actors really play their roles so seriously! Also, add to the fact that Outlaw is preceded by Gor which makes following the plot (what plot??) a difficult task indeed.

Jack Palance really looks annoyed in almost every scene he's in. Maybe it's those really goofy hats he wears and his facial expression which says "I have more talent in my pinky fingernail than all these scum actors combined." Urbano is less than mediocre as Cabot, but is less painful to watch than Russel Savadier's portrayal of sex starved Watney. Try not to regurgitate during his massages (EWW!). The barely clad nymphs in the film add a little (and I do stress little) enjoyment to the film especially the terrific acting of Donna Denton whose "Get out of here, you disgusting worm!" speech may be the highlight of the entire movie. That or any scene with Nigel "Kermit" Chipps.

There must've have been so many Seymour Butts jokes during the making of this film.

The only reason I actually sat through this entire movie is because I happened to be an extra in it and was curious to see myself on the big screen. They shot some of the scenes in South Africa, in and around an old mine dump just outside my home town (Benoni). As poor students, my buddy and I thought it would be a fun way to make extra money being extras in movies during vacations, and it kinda was. We made a load of spare cash too, since the movie makers were exploiting the currency exchange rate at the time and paid pretty well (for us at the time anyway).

Anyway, the movie was laughable, and even during filming I could tell that it was going to be. If you ever happen to see this movie, there is a fight scene where the hero kills his attacker with a big (wooden) sword by clearly stabbing the ground next to his chest. Do I need to say more?

Terrible movie, great MST3K episode. The movie, bad in just about every aspect. The acting, writing, and special effects are on par with a high school play.

If you think that the presence of Jack Palance can save this movie, think again. He actually makes the movie worse by just being a good actor. He makes it glaringly obvious that the rest of the cast is horrible. Oh and the costumes, my god the costumes.

For a fun game while watching, drink every time they say Cabot. You'll be drunk within the first 15 min of the film, and that's bound to make it more interesting.

Wow, is this flick ever a heaping mound of elephant dung. The terrible skimpy metallic costumes and lame dance routines done by the few women "acting" in this film can't have been made in 1989... who was lame enough to continue fads from 1983 at this point in their career? It's a good "bad movie" to watch MST3K-style, though... although seeing Jack Palance in this just made me cry. Was he forced to do it? Did he really need the money? Poor Jack. Must be pretty embarassing to be a supporting actor with top billing. Rent it and weep, my friends!

The first Gor at least had the music score redeeming it a little even if nothing else worked, it also made the mistake of having on board two talented actors and wasting them both. Here in Outlaw of Gor, aka Gor II, the score is the closest the film gets to having any kind of energy, unfortunately it is almost inappropriately utilised and actually doesn't fit at all.

Outlaw of Gor is a really cheap-looking film, as with the first Gor the photography is constantly shoddy, the sets are drab and the costumes are a mix of the cheapest plastic armours and left-over-fabrics except to even worse effect. The script is incredibly juvenile, in a way that even a child would find insulting hearing it, and has no flow at all, you can actually feel the cornball awkwardness the actors clearly felt delivering it. The film is so thin plot-wise that you'd be forgiven if you thought there wasn't one, it's laboriously paced and doesn't even try to make sense- in fact the duller the film gets the more incomprehensible it gets too. The fight scenes and their choreography are even more artificial than the children's-playground-like ones in the first film, the editing is slapdash in the scenes, the choreography is unenthusiastic sloppiness all over and there's just no fun or tension or even life to them.

The characters have very little personality, just underdeveloped genre clichés really, and Outlaw of Gor has to have one of the most irritating comedy relief sidekicks of all time. To call the direction inept is an understatement and the acting is terrible across the board. This is including Jack Palance, who actually was a great actor who excelled in villain roles but you wouldn't think so here, here is his career worst performance and the only time where he looked bored and embarrassed. Particularly bad in the acting department were Urbano Barberini who once again tries to mask his lack of charisma and limited acting skills with cornball dialogue delivery and acting like a buffoon and it gets annoying, Donna Denton who screams her lines almost the entire time and it gets old quickly and Russell Savadier whose character is useless and irritating in the first place and his performance really grates on the nerves. Oddly enough despite Palance being the best known actor and actually having acting talent Rebecca Ferratti is the least bad, there's more life and expression than there was in her performance in the first film and she does light up the screen with her sexiness.

All in all, one of the worst sequels ever made, making the same major mistakes the first film did to even worse effect and makes more on the way. As extremely weak the first Gor was, it's Citizen Kane compared to this almost irredeemable follow-up. 1/10 Bethany Cox