Rating: 2/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2024 | 8/52 | Peplum
Greece, in the year 490 BC, was a land divided — Athens against Sparta — while Athens itself was torn by internal conflict and treachery. Enemy of all Greece and poised for conquest was the great Darius, king of the Persians. In that fateful moment, the Greeks found a hero to unite them — Philippides, the greatest athlete of his time, winner of the Olympic Games, whose race from Marathon to Athens not only saved them from destruction but set the great marathon race which has crowned the Olympics ever since.
Philippides becomes commander of the Sacred Guard. Supporters of the ousted tyrant, Hippias, try to get him to fall in love with Charis, occupying his time and neutralizing him. But Philippides loves Andromeda. BUT Theocrites convinces Philippides that Andromeda is with him, so Philippides pursues Charis.
But that stops mattering when Darius plans to attack Greece.
“Sword and Sandal” is a genre I have a hard time getting into. This one has some greasy boys with big muscles and the peplum staple, Steve Reeves, but it’s not enough for me.
It’s also hard to understand Theocrites’ standpoint. Darius wants them divided and will conquer them, and Theocrites can’t wait, like, a week to kill their best hope.
The smaller fight choreography is solid. The war choreo, not so much — mostly boys repeatedly tapping shields.
The underwater stuff is pretty good, especially when dudes are taking arrows to the chiseled torso.
I wish I could find the RiffTrax version of this. Instead, I found a digitally up-scaled Spanish dub with horrendous subtitles. So, it had a lot going against it.
It’s sub-90 minutes, though!