Review of Ursus in the Land of Fire

This is yet another peplum with the muscle-bound Ursus for protagonist; of the four I watched during this epic movie marathon, it is perhaps the least – but, by this point, the over-familiarity of the plots (and set-pieces: once again, the hero is made to perform a show of strength involving large animals) had begun to make itself felt! So, we get a usurper to the throne abetted by an ambitious woman (Claudia Mori, future wife of celebrated Italian personality Adriano Celentano) and a deposed princess whom the villain secretly covets; Ursus, too, is once again protector of the peaceful farming community living in the shadow of a mountain housing a volcano (worshipped as a god and guarded by a group of elderly priests). The villain finds both other units in his way and has them decimated – but Ursus, with the help of the princess (both of whom had been led to distrust one another until saner minds prevailed), determines to right the many wrongs committed. As with most examples of its low-brow ilk, the film cannot fail to provide intermittent (albeit unintentional) hilarity: the oddest case involves the hero cowering from a string of arrows (fired by the enemy on horseback) which never come!; a woman engaged in casual conversation with Ursus' aged(!) sidekick suddenly drops dead, the first victim of an assault on the village; and, when Ursus and the old man are captured and tied to the obligatory grind-stone, it is the latter who is mercilessly whipped in an effort to coax the hero into submission! In the end, the only noteworthy touches here are atypical ones – a jousting tournament(!) in which Ursus fights (and wins) incognito a' la Robin Hood or GLADIATOR (2000) and the various entrances in the form of weird faces within the volcanic cave itself.