Amazons (1986)

A typically impoverished latter day Corman romp, Amazons was a good few years too late for the brief sword and sorcery boom that followed in the wake of Conan the Barbarian (1982). Like so many of its kind, it fails to capture the essential grottiness needed to lend its primitive fantasy world a sense of real place. Though it left much to be desired, at least Conan the Barbarian presented its world as a real place, with foul weather, mud, shit and disease. In Amazons and films of its ilk, the women are all perfectly proportioned and made up, with not a hair out of place (the mother of one of the heroines looks not a day older than her daughter!) and the men only sweat when it looks good, usually during the soft core grunting and groaning sessions in front of an open fire (cue the tasteful orange filter) that pass for sex scenes. These worlds are violent places, but there's never a drop of blood spilt and everyone speaks like a troupe of very bad off-off-Broadway hams rehearsing Shakespeare.

In this respect, the two leads are particularly guilty. Sadly, both Reed and Randolph seem of the opinion that snarling a bit during the fight scenes, dramatically flourishing their weapons and deadpanning the boring dialogue is all it takes to make a performance. Kingsley stands around as a poor substitute for Sybil Danning who usually seems to frequent such things and the men seem to have chosen specifically on how long their beards are and how dumb they can look.

Amazons is really no different to any one of a dozen similarly themed epics (La reina barbara (1985), Warrior Queen (1985), The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984), and on and on...) and as such offers no reason for the unwary video punter to rent it over any of its rivals. Vague promises in the packaging of titillation and salaciousness don't amount to much (the heroines may have trouble keeping those furry bikinis on, but they always manage somehow) and the plot is straight from the Big Book of Fantasy Cliches. Best avoided unless this sort of thing floats your boat.
KEVIN LYONS

Last Updated: 1 January, 2009