The New Gladiators

Rating:
Summary: ROLLERBALL, Italian-style
Review: After a rapid decline in quality with CONQUEST, Fulci did better with this low-budget but enjoyable futuristic action thriller. It's a messily-plotted but fun movie made to cash in on the then-popular (and short-lived) [...]

This is set in a BLADE RUNNER-style world of shuttles zipping across high skyscrapers, and is ruled over by corrupt TV stations who keep the human race in control with ever-more violent TV game shows. One such station stages a re-staging of the Ancient Rome Gladiator games - on motorbikes!

Though it has many faults (tacky FX, poor action scenes, hard-to-follow story), it still has some good ideas and decent acting from Italo-exploitation regulars like Jared Martin, Al Yamanouchi, Claudio Cassinelli, Howard Ross and Al Cliver. Fred Williamson's also around, but he barely gets twenty words to say!

Effective scenes on cruelty include prisoners forced hang over electrified floors, a pair of gory decapitations, and a good psychological torture scene. Best aspect of the film is Riz Ortolani's pounding theme tune, but this becomes overused with time.

Not a great film, but it's certainly worth seeing.

Rating:
Summary: New Gladiators is Definately 'Old School'
Review: Coming from the 'Italian Master of Gore' I was definately expecting something that this movie is not. It is not comparable to Fulci's masterpieces. While there were a small handfull of scenes where the Master makes himself known, they were too few and far between to keep the movie alive.

This movie is very similar to the dozens of other low-budget 'dark future' movies of the time, and if you've seen one you've seen them all. The story is slow and often difficult to follow and the ending makes zero sense.

However I do give this movie points for originality. This movie is a lower budget version of 'The Running Man', except this movie was first. I also enjoyed the god-awful special effects; they were another saving grace of the film (read: the fly by city miniature scenes). Not to mention the soundtrack that consists of one song repeated over and over (not a bad song though).

Even though the movie is not too enjoyable, I would have given in three stars because of the extras, unfortunately the awful quality of the movie took away from its rating. But in true Troma fashion there are a decent array of extras included with this flic.

Bottom line don't expect 'Zombie', but rather a lower budget 'Logan's Run' or 'The Running Man'. If these kind of movies are your thing then you can probably get your money's worth from this film.

Rating:
Summary: New Gladiators is Definately 'Old School'
Review: Coming from the 'Italian Master of Gore' I was definately expecting something that this movie is not. It is not comparable to Fulci's masterpieces. While there were a small handfull of scenes where the Master makes himself known, they were too few and far between to keep the movie alive.

This movie is very similar to the dozens of other low-budget 'dark future' movies of the time, and if you've seen one you've seen them all. The story is slow and often difficult to follow and the ending makes zero sense.

However I do give this movie points for originality. This movie is a lower budget version of 'The Running Man', except this movie was first. I also enjoyed the god-awful special effects; they were another saving grace of the film (read: the fly by city miniature scenes). Not to mention the soundtrack that consists of one song repeated over and over (not a bad song though).

Even though the movie is not too enjoyable, I would have given in three stars because of the extras, unfortunately the awful quality of the movie took away from its rating. But in true Troma fashion there are a decent array of extras included with this flic.

Bottom line don't expect 'Zombie', but rather a lower budget 'Logan's Run' or 'The Running Man'. If these kind of movies are your thing then you can probably get your money's worth from this film.

Rating:
Summary: Science fiction schlock
Review: No figure in the horror film genre is as divisive as Lucio Fulci. After watching one or two of his films, viewers tend to move into one of two camps. One side hails Fulci as a master of terror, a man who upped the gore quotient in his films while creating wonderfully atmospheric pictures. For these people, Fulci is right up there with the likes of Dario Argento as one of the best filmmakers ever to emerge from Italy. The other camp sneers at these claims, pointing to the plodding pace of his films, the use of extreme gore to camouflage plot holes, and the director's inability to draw good performances out of his cast as evidence of mediocrity. Initially, I enjoyed Fulci's films, specifically "Zombie," "City of the Living Dead," and "The New York Ripper" because I did not know any better. When I came on the scene, you went to Fulci to feed your craving for gore. What a difference a few years exploring the genre makes! While I will not go so far as to remove Lucio from my play list altogether, I have seen enough of his films to realize he is not a cinematic genius. He is at best a competent director, at worst an abysmal one, and there are plenty of examples of bad filmmaking in this director's filmography. Included in his canon of mediocre movies is one of his forays into science fiction, the 1983 movie "The New Gladiators."

Forget the Fulci of horror with this movie. Instead, cast your mind back to the days when Italian directors went on a sci-fi bender, pumping out product to ride the success of Carpenter's "Escape From New York" and the Mel Gibson vehicle "The Road Warrior." Fulci dove on the bandwagon with this "shocker" about a futuristic society that uses televised gladiatorial combat shows to keep the masses in line. I know what you're thinking: Schwarzenegger's "The Running Man" and reality television, right? Maybe, except most of this film's focus has little to do with either of these two concepts. Jared Martin plays Drake, the champion racer in the "Thrillkill" program who just happens to murder some goons roughing up his wife. He's arrested, convicted, and sentenced to television's latest program, a new gladiatorial combat program advertised as the successor to the Coliseum games of ancient Rome. Martin ends up in a jail/training program with Abdul (Fred Williamson), Akira (Al Yamanouchi), Kirk (Al Cliver), and a few other miscreants. Also in the picture is Cortez (Claudio Cassinelli), a ruthless television executive, and Raven (Howard Ross), the sadistic guard in charge of training the "contestants" with cheesy ray gun effects and laughable punishments.

The training programs look positively awful. In one series of scenes, Fulci has his actors fighting while strobe lights flash. Why? Who knows, but it looks ridiculous. The extreme training eventually unites all of the personalities, with Martin's character emerging as the unofficial leader of the group. By the time Drake swallows a device that allows him to melt metal, I knew I was watching an absolute clunker of a film. The contest does take place, but it's the tamest gladiatorial combat scenario I have yet witnessed in a sci-fi film. All you see are a bunch of guys riding around on bikes hacking away at one another. A bit of the old trademark Fulci gore livens things up briefly, but not enough to salvage the film. The scenes, shot in extreme close up to hide glaring flaws in the set pieces, are interesting only when you compare them to other movies. And wait until you see the conclusion! What a groaner. I won't spoil the fine points for you, but at one moment a satellite blows up in space, which we see on a computer monitor. Fine, but should we see smoke rising off a celestial object? I think not, Mr. Fulci! There's simply no excuse for this sort of sloppy special effects work, even in low budget Italian boilerplate. What did he use as a stand in for that satellite, a Christmas ornament?

Surprisingly, I liked several things about the movie. That scene where we see the convicts suspended over an electrified floor was hilarious. Too, the set pieces for the city, which looked like cardboard cut outs adorned with holiday lighting, worked in an odd way. The best part of the film was a glance at a rival network's show about people who sign on to face their fears through some sort of computer simulation. We see a lady reclining on a bed as a giant pendulum swings closer and closer to her throat. Nifty! They ought to try that out on one of the reality shows on our television networks. Overall, "The New Gladiators" is too ridiculous to take as a serious entry in the science fiction genre. The ideas behind the shoddy pacing, acting, and effects work, however, does seem highly prescient considering what came after. In that regard, Fulci's film is worth watching if you don't mind laughing too hard at the whole thing. By the way, Riz Ortolani scored the movie.

Troma released the DVD version of the film and made a mess of it in the process. Supposedly "restored" for our viewing pleasure, the picture is a fullscreen transfer of what looks like a murky VHS tape. Extras include an interview with Dario Argento (?), several schlock Troma trailers, an intro from Lloyd Kaufman, and an interview with Fulci's daughter (the director passed away in the 1990s from diabetes). Fans of the Italian science fiction era-roughly the early 1980s-should probably check this one out. Rent it first, though.

Rating:
Summary: Mid quality Fulci - Low quality DVD
Review: Once more it becomes appearant that Troma's president Lloyd Kauffmann comes from another world. In that world, lousy DVD's looking like conserved VHS tapes are called "loving restorations". At least, there is some interesting bonus material, including statements of Fulci's daughter Antonella. Anyway, it is nice that "New Gladiators" was released at all.
It is an interesting and dark variation on the "Rollerball" theme, though I would not call it a good movie. It is carried out in a style which is typical for that period of Fulci's work, that is, more effort is spend on enhancing single scenes to the maximum effect than on developing a coherent narrative. "New Gladiators" has a fairly good opening, including the surreal murder of the protagonist's wife, and an ending which is appropriate for a sci-fi movie. Unfortunately, the middle part is very weak and confused. It reaches its silliest moment when the protagonist swallows a computer chip which enables him to manipulate electronic devices and even melt metal walls only to be re-captured one minute later.
The special effects work well, even the toy models are not so bad, and the movie has a nice musical score. In contrast to "Rollerball", "New Gladiators" disposes also of the background of the antique Rome (at one point, new gladiators meet old gladiators).
As a Fulci fan you will probably be surprised that he could also handle a sci-fi project with some success.

Rating:
Summary: Mid quality Fulci - Low quality DVD
Review: Once more it becomes appearant that Troma's president Lloyd Kauffmann comes from another world. In that world, lousy DVD's looking like conserved VHS tapes are called "loving restorations". At least, there is some interesting bonus material, including statements of Fulci's daughter Antonella. Anyway, it is nice that "New Gladiators" was released at all.
It is an interesting and dark variation on the "Rollerball" theme, though I would not call it a good movie. It is carried out in a style which is typical for that period of Fulci's work, that is, more effort is spend on enhancing single scenes to the maximum effect than on developing a coherent narrative. "New Gladiators" has a fairly good opening, including the surreal murder of the protagonist's wife, and an ending which is appropriate for a sci-fi movie. Unfortunately, the middle part is very weak and confused. It reaches its silliest moment when the protagonist swallows a computer chip which enables him to manipulate electronic devices and even melt metal walls only to be re-captured one minute later.
The special effects work well, even the toy models are not so bad, and the movie has a nice musical score. In contrast to "Rollerball", "New Gladiators" disposes also of the background of the antique Rome (at one point, new gladiators meet old gladiators).
As a Fulci fan you will probably be surprised that he could also handle a sci-fi project with some success.

Rating:
Summary: Forget Gladiator, The New Gladiators will always be newer.
Review: This movie is a post-nuke fans delight. It's packed with Italian post-nuke regulars Fred Williamson, Al Cliver, and Al Yamanouchi. It's basically the same plot as The Running Man, but in a cruel irony, The New Gladiators was made years earlier! Plenty of futuristic sets, clothes, and dirtbike action to please even the most jaded post-nuke fan! ( this text refers to the vhs version).