No one intends for this film to be anything but "cheese". Historical facts go out the window, but that's okay, because this is a Cyclops.
This Cyclops is mean, and eats people's innards. And he can kick Hannibal the cannibal's butt. There's loads of gore for the brats, but the dorks will want more outlandish special effects. We are given more readable actions, so there is a logic of plot and story line to follow than the "video arcade" special effects the dorks would stuff down our throats. This speaks well for the director.
One mark against it is the ease with which our hero communicates with the Cyclops. This went beyond cheese.
And it is cheese. Lots of fun. Unlike most films, the good guys sometimes win. That's a nice twist. But what makes this into a good cheese, of the Provolone kind, are the fairly well defined characters. Besides the lead, we get several characters we can follow and believe. Gordion and Julian in particular. Even the two bad guys, Tiberius and Falco, have some saving graces. A lot of one scene characters are in for laughs, and do a lot of ignorant things, but this is understandable in human evolution for the scientific minded, because this is set in an unknown BC year, before some of the genes for stupidity vanished. And, in fact, this is Rome, where arrogance did exist in humans, which makes these foolish characters much more realistic than the illiterate masses want to admit.
The female lead is ultra beautiful, at least by male standards, but isn't a "woman's woman", but more of the male fantasy woman. She doesn't fit the mode of the former, who we know survive these films, so the viewer never really knows if she'll survive. That does make for suspense.
I would've given it a higher mark if there was less gore, and if the scenes where the Cyclops communicates with the hero were deleted. That was ridiculous. The story was fun, though, and entertaining.
This Cyclops is mean, and eats people's innards. And he can kick Hannibal the cannibal's butt. There's loads of gore for the brats, but the dorks will want more outlandish special effects. We are given more readable actions, so there is a logic of plot and story line to follow than the "video arcade" special effects the dorks would stuff down our throats. This speaks well for the director.
One mark against it is the ease with which our hero communicates with the Cyclops. This went beyond cheese.
And it is cheese. Lots of fun. Unlike most films, the good guys sometimes win. That's a nice twist. But what makes this into a good cheese, of the Provolone kind, are the fairly well defined characters. Besides the lead, we get several characters we can follow and believe. Gordion and Julian in particular. Even the two bad guys, Tiberius and Falco, have some saving graces. A lot of one scene characters are in for laughs, and do a lot of ignorant things, but this is understandable in human evolution for the scientific minded, because this is set in an unknown BC year, before some of the genes for stupidity vanished. And, in fact, this is Rome, where arrogance did exist in humans, which makes these foolish characters much more realistic than the illiterate masses want to admit.
The female lead is ultra beautiful, at least by male standards, but isn't a "woman's woman", but more of the male fantasy woman. She doesn't fit the mode of the former, who we know survive these films, so the viewer never really knows if she'll survive. That does make for suspense.
I would've given it a higher mark if there was less gore, and if the scenes where the Cyclops communicates with the hero were deleted. That was ridiculous. The story was fun, though, and entertaining.