jvs (04/20/83)
When "Tarzen The Ape Man" came out a few years ago, it seemed the Miles O'Keefe was really getting the shaft. That picture was strictly a Bo Derik cleavage flick. Poor Miles only got to run around grunting and flexing his muscles. Not exactly an opportunity to prove your acting ability. However, it did seem that Tarzen might still help get O'Keefes career off the ground. But for the past few years I would always wonder what ever happend to Miles O'Keefe any time the subject of Tarzen or Bo Derik came up. I really expected to see a rush of O'Keefe films after Tarzen, but it seemed the guy had droped from the face of the earth. Well I went to see "Ator" last night and I know now why we havn't been seeing much of O'Keefe in the movies. Ator is a new sword and sorcery type film recently released. I went to see it thinking I was going to see somthing along the lines of "Conan the Barbarian". Ator tried real hard to be like "Conan" but it never had a chance. Not that Conan was any movie triumph, but it was miles above this dismal offering. There really isn't anything good to say about this movie. It's really bad when your watching the opening credits and you already know your in trouble. The first tip off was the quality of the film print. It's a new film but it already has more cracks and scratches than an old mirror (it's possible this film isn't really that new). The credits were another tip off. All the names were total unknowns (not always bad), 80% Italian (not necessarily bad), but the company that made it didn't even have the nerve to identify themselves. So you have a low budget, foreign film put out by backyard productions inc.. Still the film could have been good if it had been well done. That means good script, direction, acting, etc.. Scratch all of the above. This movie was poorly written and there wasn't a good actor in the bunch. Not only that, most of this movie didn't even make sense. By this I mean there were a lot of scenes just thrown into this movie. Things that somebody probably thought would look neat, but didn't really have anything to do with what was going on in the show. Iv'e really started rambling on here (like Ator I suppose) so I'd better wrap this thing up. In short, Ator is real dog/stinker of the week material. It's an action film without action (I was even bored during the fight scenes, altough some of them were amuseing, like when a guy drops dead and his opponent hasn't even come near him with a sword yet). Don't waste your money on this one, it wasn't even worth the 2 bucks I spent on it. The only good thing I can say about this movie is that it's so bad it might become a cult flick someday. At least I know what happend to Miles O'Keefe. I don't know what kind of football player this guy was back in college, but he should have pursued a career in profesional football. He certainly doesn't have a future in acting.