Well, I stumbled upon "Gor" late in 2020, and truth be told, I have never even heard about this 1987 fantasy movie. I do enjoy the fantasy genre a lot, so of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch "Gor" from director Fritz Kiersch.

And this is a late-1980s fantasy movie in every aspect, for better or worse. In a sense, you know exactly what you are in for here when you sit down to watch "Gor", and that is what director Fritz Kiersch delivers.

The storyline was pretty straight forward, but it was such a cliché of a storyline, even for a fantasy movie, that it was somewhat way too generic and mundane, actually. In fact, the movie suffered from having such a trivial storyline, where nothing was left to surprise the audience. And truth be told, it felt like the storyline was written by a late teen with an interest in Dungeons & Dragons, expect lacking all that special contents that the roleplaying game has to offer.

One thing that I don't understand in movies such as "Gor" is the costumes. Why would warriors don so little and impractical armor? It just makes no logical sense, as it offers next to no protection against attackers. And the women in the movie were, as they tend to be in movies such as "Gor", amply endowed around the chest and wearing scantily garments. Again, why? Makes little sense, and just works to fuel the notion of the movie being concocted by a late teen.

Needless to say that I was more than baffled and surprised to see none other than Jack Palance make an appearance in this movie, and also Oliver Reed. That was just odd.

While I managed to sit through the entire duration of "Gor", this was hardly an overly entertaining fantasy movie, nor were it a memorable addition to the fantasy genre. I sat through to the end, but this is hardly a movie that I will watch again, nor is it one that I would recommend fantasy fans to rush out to obtain a copy of.

My rating of "Gor" lands on a generous, but less than mediocre four out of ten stars.

Try, if you can, to imagine Disney's fantasy/sci-fi mega-budget flop John Carter as if it had been made in the '80s by The Cannon Group, producers of such cinematic clunkers as Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, American Ninja, Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold, and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. This might give you some idea of what Gor is like: dreadful production values, a terrible script, lousy action, unconvincing sets, cheap costumes, and a cast of has-beens and never-weres directed by the man responsible for Stephen King dud Children of the Corn.

The film stars Urbano Barberini as mild-mannered physics lecturer Tarl Cabot, who is transported to the planet Gor by his magic ring, where he helps a group of brave warriors to overthrow evil despot Sarm (Oliver Reed),who has enslaved the people of nearby villages and stolen their sacred homestones. Featuring wooden performances from everyone, with the exception of Oliver Reed, who hams it up to the max (his exuberant performance no doubt aided by enough alcohol to fuel a small plane),Gor is difficult to endure, although the generous curves of sexy warrior woman Talena (Playboy playmate Rebecca Ferratti) help to ease the pain just a little.

1 out of 10, with a generous extra point added for the battle of the bad '80s hair-dos, as Talena, with her massive rock-babe barnet, fights another woman sporting crimped blonde locks.

The only thing in Gor that showed any signs of energy and effort was the music score, even if the placement didn't always come off right that at least had some vigour and soul. And there is the odd moment that offers some very mild cheesy fun.

Other than that Gor, for personal tastes and many others, was extremely weak. It is very cheap-looking, the photography for the cheapest-looking fantasy TV show is better-looking than the slapdash photography for Gor, the sets are drab, the effects look half-finished and the costumes is reminiscent of plastic and left-over fabric. The dialogue is incredibly inane, it offers some mild campy amusement to begin with but gets really tiresome after a while, and so unnatural its flow that it's like hearing some really bad dubbing. Gor's story lacks any kind of wonder, excitement, fun or suspense(sense also applies here). Instead it has many daft and irrelevant scenes, is so episodic in structure that it becomes painfully predictable and while it was never easy fully understanding what was happening the final third really took the biscuit, being deadly dull and incoherent. The ending is rather abrupt as well and the fight scenes are hilariously bad, primary school playground fighting is better choreographed and more realistic-looking.

The characters are too cardboard and act far too obtusely to allow us to properly connect with them or be interested in them. The film shows a completely inept character at work in Fritz Kiersch and the acting from the two leads is atrocious, Rebecca Ferratti's sexiness is not enough to make up for very expressionless acting and Urbano Barberini is even worse, his cornball line delivery gets annoying fast and he spends the entire duration acting like a buffoon. Gor also has two talented actors on board, unfortunately their talents are very poorly utilised. Oliver Reed is underused and while he always excelled in villain roles this saw Reed going through the motions. Jack Palance is even more wronged, like Reed it was playing villains where he particularly excelled as an actor but that doesn't translate here, his appearance is pretty pointless actually(screen time and purpose of character) and he spent his whole screen time confused and pained.

Overall, extremely weak aside from the music with two talented actors embarrassingly wasted in roles that would have suited them to the ground if treated right. 2/10 Bethany Cox