"The Puma Man" is a gloriously incompetent, cheesy, bizarrely entertaining and totally decadent Superhero Movie knock-off like only those wacky Southern Europeans could make them. Like its Spanish equivalent "Supersonic Man", "The Puma Man" is such an atrociously bad film that you should probably better just avoid it, unless of course you have an eccentric sense of humor or unless you have a weakness for totally bonkers and inept European exploitation cinema from the late 70's/early 80's. Puma Man is presumably the lames superhero in history. First of all, it actually takes an awful long time before the Puma Man – in every day life he's named Professor Tony Farms - discovers and acknowledges that he is, in fact, the Puma Man! His friends and foes are more aware of his powerful capacities than he is and they even have to conduct experiments to convince him; like throwing his ass out of a third storey apartment window only to prove that he will land on his feet. Puma Man's mentor Vadinho, a giant native Indian type of guy who obviously has some oppressed homosexual desires, is undoubtedly a lot stronger and powerful than the superhero himself. He can prevent cars from leaving with his bare hands, for Christ's sake! Why would he need the help of the Puma Man? In fact, this is the only superhero movie where the mentor/sidekick character actually has to do all the important work himself, as the titular hero is always unavailable for some reason. Either he's running away from his responsibilities or he's captured by his nemesis. Since my mates and I spent so much time hysterically laughing at this film, we didn't had the chance to follow much of the actual "plot", but it has something to do with Puma boy and his pal – who's actually an Aztec Priest – trying to prevent the ultra evil Donald Pleasance (who else?) from stealing a golden mask that provides mind controlling power. Speaking of Donald Pleasance
Yup, here he is again in yet another embarrassing supporting role as the mighty and powerful evil genius; a typecast role he's forever associated to ever since depicting the most legendary of all Ernst Stavro Blofelds in the James Bond classic "You Only Live Twice". The plot remains rather vague and evasive regarding what exactly Kobras' wicked intentions are. World domination, I presume, since they all want that, but how exactly is unclear. The Puma Man's superhero outfit is pathetic, with a miserable red cape and a costume that isn't even tight around the crotch like it ought to be. He flies like a hummingbird under alcoholic influence – whoever knew pumas flew, by the way? – and he has the annoying power to spontaneously appear in peoples' cars. That has got to be so dangerous. In case you haven't figured it out yet, "The Puma Man" is a bad and utterly cheesy Italian trash production that should only be endured by the fans of this peculiar type of cinema. There's shabby music, terribly written dialogs, inferior acting performances and a total lack of really exciting action sequences. You'd have to be crazy to even like this film. I love it
Review of The Pumaman
