User reviews

Ah, Gor. I really used to think Cave Dwellers was pretty crappy, but Outlaw of Gor makes me wish Ator could skewer Cabot while Thong pummels Watney Smith into submission. Having seen Outlaw several times, I must admit, it does tend to get better and you catch even more hilarity. The strange thing is that the humor is so unintentional since the actors really play their roles so seriously! Also, add to the fact that Outlaw is preceded by Gor which makes following the plot (what plot??) a difficult task indeed.

Jack Palance really looks annoyed in almost every scene he's in. Maybe it's those really goofy hats he wears and his facial expression which says "I have more talent in my pinky fingernail than all these scum actors combined." Urbano is less than mediocre as Cabot, but is less painful to watch than Russel Savadier's portrayal of sex starved Watney. Try not to regurgitate during his massages (EWW!). The barely clad nymphs in the film add a little (and I do stress little) enjoyment to the film especially the terrific acting of Donna Denton whose "Get out of here, you disgusting worm!" speech may be the highlight of the entire movie. That or any scene with Nigel "Kermit" Chipps.

There must've have been so many Seymour Butts jokes during the making of this film.

Let's see.... take one of the more infamous literary staples, namely the Gor books by John Norman, convert it to film and you'd think you'd be onto a winner. Why? Well, the Gor books, for those of you who haven't had the pleasure, or pain, can be summed up as follows: Conan with pornography. Each and every novel was chock full of porn, sado-masochism and bondage. In short, a "raging-hormone-male-teenager's" wet dream. Hidden amongst the sleaze and thinly-veiled attempts to make the reader think of women as nothing but objects, there are actually some pretty good action-adventure stories. So it would seem that converting them to celluloid would be a winner, even if only on the soft-porn circuit.

Sadly, Outlaw of Gor is nothing like the books. Given my description above, some might breathe a sigh of relief at that. Unfortunately, by taking away the sex, having a budget less than that of the average teenager's weekly pocket money and doing some awful re-inventing of the novels' original ideas (yes there were some!), the filmmakers literally killed the golden goose and replaced it with a prize turkey.

Outlaw is just horrendous throughout, from the acting, the sets, the laughable "costumes", the editing and dialogue right down to the fight scenes that appeared to have been choreographed by the Marx Bros. But the worst thing is seeing how little they used the original material. Nevermind the porn, they plucked names out of the books and didn't do a whole lot else. Tarl Cabot, the hero of the novels, is translated into a weedy vegetarian who is totally against slavery - a complete reversal from the novels. Likewise the Priest-Kings - In the books alien insectoids who ruled the planet. In the movie we get.....Jack Palance, who doesn't seem to be in command of his own lines, let alone the planet. And yes, Jack leers and mugs his way throughout the movie, at least having the grace to look embarrassed at several points.

The plot is feeble, centering around an evil Queen's attempts to take control of the city of Koroba by murdering her husband and blaming it on Cabot. There then follows interminable amounts of wandering about in the desert by Cabot and his midget henchman (I kid you not!). We're also treated to far too many shots of the midget's rear end during the film (I mentioned the costumes were rubbish, didn't I?) and awful moralising dialogue by Cabot about the evils of slavery.

There are no special effects to speak of - the budget was too miniscule for that, just the heady excitement of one lame swordfight after another. At the end, which really sums up the whole movie and had me in hysterics, Tarl Cabot makes as if to snap his sword over his knee - a symbolic gesture of peace. Would have been good too, except that the sword does not break - it bends into a U shape like it was made out of thin tin. Yep, that's Outlaw of Gor for ya - all bent out of shape.

Even on MST3K this is one of the lamest excuses for a movie. It really is best avoided.

The only reason I actually sat through this entire movie is because I happened to be an extra in it and was curious to see myself on the big screen. They shot some of the scenes in South Africa, in and around an old mine dump just outside my home town (Benoni). As poor students, my buddy and I thought it would be a fun way to make extra money being extras in movies during vacations, and it kinda was. We made a load of spare cash too, since the movie makers were exploiting the currency exchange rate at the time and paid pretty well (for us at the time anyway).

Anyway, the movie was laughable, and even during filming I could tell that it was going to be. If you ever happen to see this movie, there is a fight scene where the hero kills his attacker with a big (wooden) sword by clearly stabbing the ground next to his chest. Do I need to say more?

The first Gor at least had the music score redeeming it a little even if nothing else worked, it also made the mistake of having on board two talented actors and wasting them both. Here in Outlaw of Gor, aka Gor II, the score is the closest the film gets to having any kind of energy, unfortunately it is almost inappropriately utilised and actually doesn't fit at all.

Outlaw of Gor is a really cheap-looking film, as with the first Gor the photography is constantly shoddy, the sets are drab and the costumes are a mix of the cheapest plastic armours and left-over-fabrics except to even worse effect. The script is incredibly juvenile, in a way that even a child would find insulting hearing it, and has no flow at all, you can actually feel the cornball awkwardness the actors clearly felt delivering it. The film is so thin plot-wise that you'd be forgiven if you thought there wasn't one, it's laboriously paced and doesn't even try to make sense- in fact the duller the film gets the more incomprehensible it gets too. The fight scenes and their choreography are even more artificial than the children's-playground-like ones in the first film, the editing is slapdash in the scenes, the choreography is unenthusiastic sloppiness all over and there's just no fun or tension or even life to them.

The characters have very little personality, just underdeveloped genre clichés really, and Outlaw of Gor has to have one of the most irritating comedy relief sidekicks of all time. To call the direction inept is an understatement and the acting is terrible across the board. This is including Jack Palance, who actually was a great actor who excelled in villain roles but you wouldn't think so here, here is his career worst performance and the only time where he looked bored and embarrassed. Particularly bad in the acting department were Urbano Barberini who once again tries to mask his lack of charisma and limited acting skills with cornball dialogue delivery and acting like a buffoon and it gets annoying, Donna Denton who screams her lines almost the entire time and it gets old quickly and Russell Savadier whose character is useless and irritating in the first place and his performance really grates on the nerves. Oddly enough despite Palance being the best known actor and actually having acting talent Rebecca Ferratti is the least bad, there's more life and expression than there was in her performance in the first film and she does light up the screen with her sexiness.

All in all, one of the worst sequels ever made, making the same major mistakes the first film did to even worse effect and makes more on the way. As extremely weak the first Gor was, it's Citizen Kane compared to this almost irredeemable follow-up. 1/10 Bethany Cox

My theory: The producers of this film first made the movie "Gor". It only took them four days. Then someone noticed that they still had three days left on their equipment rentals, so they decided to film a second movie. Someone put together a script while on a potty break. They used the same sets, the same props, and much the same cast. The end result was "Outlaw of Gor".

Jack Palance must have been hard-up for money to do this. It ranks up there with the biggest wastes of talent in movie history, right next to Max von Sydow in "Strange Brew" and Sir Lawrence Olivier in "Clash of the Titans".

Terrible movie, great MST3K episode. The movie, bad in just about every aspect. The acting, writing, and special effects are on par with a high school play.

If you think that the presence of Jack Palance can save this movie, think again. He actually makes the movie worse by just being a good actor. He makes it glaringly obvious that the rest of the cast is horrible. Oh and the costumes, my god the costumes.

For a fun game while watching, drink every time they say Cabot. You'll be drunk within the first 15 min of the film, and that's bound to make it more interesting.

Most simply, these movies are proof that science fiction and fantasy have fallen completely.

From Asimov's foresight and Tolkien's epics... devolve this sexually awkward televised game of Dungeons and Dragons?! I am disappointed with the genre because of this film.

No plot, annoyingly hollow characters that never develop, horrible actors, and a poor concept from the beginning make this movie (and it's twin) worthless. Quite literally, Mother Goose's simplest tale has miles more to say about the world. While such a feat used to be hard for this genre, now it seems 9 year olds get novels published, and screenplays filmed.

It gets a second star simply for being so easy to heckle. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 version is more enjoyable, and illustrates my point beautifully. However, this episode is a little wasted if you don't watch with friends and heckle along too.

outlaw of gor. the title says it all. a few comments before we begin: its a sequel, and far more exotic and watchable than its predecessor, useless comparisons to the story on which it was based will not be entertained here. second, mst 3k is not outlaw of gor. finally, whoever caught the midget butt thing was right on. this is typical example of a moment caught on this awkward film that makes me wonder, what, exactly, are we supposed to be thinking about this? we also see urbinos ass in the same shot. true, all of this is as appealing as awful watney smith getting massaged or the queen yelling "guards!" even once, though she does it about six thousand times in the movie...anyhow, you get the idea that the viewer is left to wonder what the filmmakers were thinking. its really baffling. jack palance is amazing. i assume he was taking his annual holiday in Italy when he got picked up for this one. his performance as Zeno is almost as good as the hip-hop/wizard costume he wears. any movie where palance wears fat gold chains and speaks in monosyllables is worth something. a half-smile is detectable on his face throughout his performance. the hardest part of the film is how unevenly its paced. this is typical for adventure films, to proceed in chapters, but nothing really apologizes for this. one more thing, in the first five minutes you will hear the name Cabot repeated about six hundred times. also, the set for the castle sort of looks like a terry Jones fantasy movie i saw once but forgot the title. one may also be confused by a scene which was choreographed in the manner of a high school dance class, with the added dimension of exploitation, achieved by a nodding palance and bouncing small man. the upper part of the frame here was masked off not very successfully in post production, or maybe during a set shot. you'll see what i mean. it sort of looks like the concert scene in the blues brothers where the crowd and the stage are pastiched together. naturally, gor doesn't achieve any describable effect. this film is very annoying at times and at others, downright mystifying. i would suggest this movie only to those who prefer a strange film and have a high tolerance for poor film-making. for those of you brave enough, i would say go out and see it right away.

*shrug* I guess it's a sequel, and we see some sequences from the original, and some people have claimed to see it, so I guess it must exist. But why anyone would want to make a sequel is anyone's guess, much less _this_ sequel. Jack Palance is the big-name star, and he manages to embarrass himself fully as a priest in leftover Pharisee robes from Jesus Christ Superstar. he's given plenty of help by the amateur Italian movies who appear here, though. If you ever felt tempted to pick up the misogynistic Gor series of novels, watching this movie should convince you otherwise.

So this is the sequel to the first Gor movie, which is crazy because not only have I never met someone who saw the first Gor, nobody has ever mentioned to me that they liked it. So then they made a sequel to a movie nobody saw or liked and I don't know what its about other than no one in the movie had access to pants or shirts with sleeves.

The first one was bad enough, and the short skirts, one take filming, and Jack Palance in funny hats just made me nauseous.

If you survived watching the first Gor movie you will survive Outlaw of Gor too. I like the first one a litte better (not that I claim that the first movie is a masterpiece or something like that) but anyway, if you like to dig some cheesy sword and magic style, you can this one on your plate too. It's at least in his own way more entertaining than most of the stuff they produce and air these days on all those pay channels.

Fair film, apparently shot in So. Africa dessert. I watched several times, mainly to see the beautiful Donna Denton. She was also "The Face" in the Stacy Keach 'Mike Hammer' TV series. 'Outlaw of Gor' demonstrates that she is more than just a face. She steals the show from female star Rebecca Ferratti. Deonna Denton is the main (maybe the only) reason to watch this so-so film. They don't come any prettier than Ms. Denton.

Ok, the movie on it's own is pretty horrible, but when you had mike, servo and crow to the mix, it becomes the funniest movie ever made. The whole Jack Palance bit just got me going. However, if you're just watching the movie, you can surely appreciate the cheese that this movie presents. As it is commonly said, there are bad movies, and there are movies so bad they're good. This falls into the latter category. Much like Battlefield Earth.

I found the story concept to have some potential but the film was poorly made. Tarl's sidekicks could have been different and better (and less irritating). The props could have been improved at lot more. As for the lead actor, Urbano Barberini looks right for the role but his acting skills were rather bad.

Volumes could be written about how to use this movie in a class to teach students how not to make a movie. That is reason enough to watch it, but it is better for your eyes, ears, and general health to watch the MST3K riff on it.

Wow, is this flick ever a heaping mound of elephant dung. The terrible skimpy metallic costumes and lame dance routines done by the few women "acting" in this film can't have been made in 1989... who was lame enough to continue fads from 1983 at this point in their career? It's a good "bad movie" to watch MST3K-style, though... although seeing Jack Palance in this just made me cry. Was he forced to do it? Did he really need the money? Poor Jack. Must be pretty embarassing to be a supporting actor with top billing. Rent it and weep, my friends!