Amazons and Gladiators Reviews

More like Bob Guccione's CALIGULA than Cecil B. DeMille's SIGN OF THE CROSS, this Roman opus reduces historical conflicts to the level of mud-wrestling matches. In 60 A.D., General Marcus Crassius (Patrick Bergin) has been banished to a post as governor of the boondocks. A victim of Caesar's jealousy, the former Punic-War hero pillages villages and designs sadistic Coliseum games to pass the time. Crassius adopts compliant teenager Gwyned as his mistress and sells her younger sister, Serena (Gabija Danile Viciute) into slavery, after killing their mother. Ten years pass, and Serena (Nichole Hiltz) grows up to be an athletic dancing girl with a bad attitude. Rather than prostitute herself, Serena kills a lascivious senator with a candleholder and flees with her friend, Briana (Melanie Gutteridge), and a captured Amazon named Ione (Jennifer Rubin). Deep in the forest, Amazon recruiter Ione recruits her fellow fugitives into her anti-Roman campaign. At a No-Slave zone ruled by Amazon general, Zenobia (Mary Tamm), Serena and Briana learn all the latest power-to-the-people maneuvers. In addition to improving her sword fighting, Serena falls for a token male rebel named Lucius (Richard Norton). Posing as dancing girls, Serena and Briana infiltrate Crassius's palace. Unfortunately, his contented paramour, Gwyned, (Wendi Winburn) snitches on sister Serena after Serena tries to get Gwyned to escape. Lucius soon joins Serena and Briana in custody, and the nefarious Crassius pits lover against lover and friend against friend in the ring. After the female fighting duo fakes Briana's death, Briana sneaks off to the dungeon and starts releasing the captives. Meanwhile, Serena talks egotistical Crassius into hand-to-hand combat. Can bloodied, exhausted Serena win this fight and lead the Amazons in even more subversive activities? Did you know that a band of lady freedom fighters (not a scrawny or homely one in the bunch) challenged Julius Caesar's authority in the provinces? A throwback to movies like BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA (1973), sword-and-sandal epics with sex on the brain.