Ator 2: L'invincibile Orion (1982) Reviews

• Ator fights evil in all forms including puppets.

  Aaron13752001-11-12

  Cave Dwellers is actually a sequel and its original title was something along the lines of Ator: The Blade Master. However, this film was done by the same people who did various other films back in the day so they changed the title, changed the credits and added footage from another film in the credits! They have to be the same people who did Pod People too, and what else do this and Pod People have in common? They were both riffed mercilessly on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Not sure why they added the footage from another film as it kind of confuses things, it certainly did with Pod People as the alien in the credit sequence looked nothing like the creature in the film. Here you have a completely looking film all together! The title is rather stupid too. Not the Ator one, but rather the Cave Dweller one as there are Cave Dwellers in the film, but they make up such an insignificant plot point that one wonders what the people at this company were thinking. Heck, the flashback sequence detailing the first film was almost as long as the cave dweller portion of this film! So this company just may have been run by people who liked to edit stuff as a hobby, maybe? The story, a bad guy goes to a castle to get some sort of new weapon or something from some old man who prattles on and on. The old man's daughter must go to the ends of the earth and there she will find Ator and his mute sidekick Thong. Ator is a man of legend who has killed a spider puppet already and he has also mastered the sword and getting buff and greasy! He joins up with the daughter as they set off on a quest to save her father, but for some reason the way back to the castle is much longer than the way to Ator's place. They must fight invisible soldiers, cavemen, wicker wearing warriors, a snake puppet and finally make their way to the final confrontation where the old man will implore Ator not to kill the evil doer so he can be tried...um, Ator has been killing left and right, why stop him now? This made for a great episode of MST3K as it is one of my favorite Joel episodes. I prefer Mike, but here, Joel is on fire as he was in Pod People too. This company may edit a film to the point of lunacy, but the end result is a film worthy of some riffing. Not a film though that I would want to track down and see unedited from said company and Joel and the bots as I just do not see it vastly improving at all. The only way I'd want to see it, is if the female lead got topless or something and I do not get that vibe from this one. So, a bad film indeed. There is better action in the flashbacks than in most of the film and too often there is just way to much lead up until something actually does happen. Case in point, the whole snake sacrifice scene. We get to watch the bad guys send multiple damsels into a hole while the hero's sidekick takes his sweet time making his way to the hero. By the end of the sequence, all the damsels were dead! Not very heroic and it took way to long! Suffice to say Conan the Barbarian would kill Ator in a fight. Heck, this guy is not even as good as Yor: The Hunter from the Future. Now that guy was bad to the bone, he didn't make no hang glider, he flipping used a pterodactyl! That is hardcore Ator! You are not!

• Heh-Dude looks like a Lady!

  Oosterhartbabe2004-05-03

  (spoilers) Horrifyingly enough, I have actually SEEN the film that this horrid film was a sequel to. It was called Ator the Fighting Eagle, and I saw it when I was just 8 years old. It made such an awful impression on me that i never forgot it. I've been an MST3K fan for a long time, so when Cavedwellers came out on tape I bought it. I was horrified to realize that it was a sequel to the wretched Ator movie that i'd seen so long ago! Ator's costume has, somehow, gotten ever skimpier than the last time i saw him. How can he wear that tiny little bikini? Doesn't he care that it shows off the fact that he has no...errr...package? And poor Thong...he gets no lines and no girl, and has to follow that frizzy haired girly doofus Ator around all the time. Has anyone else noticed that Miles O'Keefe walks like a woman? No wonder he's not interested in the pretty if somewhat lackluster Meela. The evil but prancy bad guy Zor is more to his taste, I'm sure. I loved Zor's cardboard spray painted swan helmet, and the way he spent all his time trying to touch some part of Ator. The fight scenes are so badly choreographed that its a wonder that the swords ever manage to connect. The dull old guy spends all of his time standing around looking depressed. Ator drinks from a cup given to him by a guy who hates him, and then looks surprised that they drugged him. He must be pretty smart though-he invented a hang glider in the space pf five minutes ,then flew it into a rift in the space/time continuum so that he travelled briefly into 17th century Bulgaria. That was after he stabbed the giant snake puppet, of course, and saved the post coital Meela while she sat around doing absolutely nothing. The real hero of the movie was Thong, who saved Ator several times from his boundless stupiditiy, and killed the evil Zor in the bargain. Kudos to Thong, the only competent person in the whole film.

• Hey, those ain't Ator's Opening Credits!

  Gislef1998-12-28

  The credits come from the Sandy Frank stitching job that was made to turn this movie into Cave Dwellers for re-release. Now that that's cleared up...oh! Excruciating, eye-gouging pain. Blade Master leaps shamelessly on the sword & sorcery bandwagon started by the Conan flicks...except the bandwagon never left the garage anyway. As such, this Italian flick is a dud trying to rip-off a box office dud, with predictable results. However, this would give too little credit to the director and writers, who make no effort whatsoever to maintain a coherent plot, continuity, any semblance of era-accurate continuity. Miles O'Keefe is no leading man, now or forever (Tarzan The Ape Man proved that, if Ator didn't). Just an unlikeable picture and a chore to watch.

• Something you just have to love Cinecitta for...

  Pucki2000-02-20

  I mean, you just have to love the Italian film industry. Someone came up with a post-doomsday action movie ("Road Warrior") and the Italians were busy for years doing one rip-off after another. Then some other one came up with a successful barbarian movie ("Conan") and the Italians were busy... eh, see above. Besides countless other variations of the theme (one of my favorites is Umberto Lenzi's "The Barbarians" starring the Paul twins) the Ator series was created. And this, the second one, is probably the worst (or best, depending on your point of view). Ator is called back into action by his old teacher, who has discovered some kind of nuclear power that, of course, has to be protected so it won't get into wrong hands. The old man sends his daughter to Ator, and after a few complications Ator, his sidekick Tong and the girl set back to the castle, which meanwhile has fallen to some evildoer (of course, an old "class mate" of Ator). Somewhere along the way the heroic trio forgets about the plot and eradicates some giant snake-worshipping cult for the fun of it (not before some virgins are sacrificed). Just in time before the madman finally loses his temper and kills the wise teacher our heroes remember their duties, invent hanggliding and grenades and save the day. Included: terrible acting by all participants (especially O'Keeffe), incredibly hilarious "special effects" (you just have to adore the snake fight scene, which must be sort of a hommage to "Bride of the Monster"), badly staged fight scenes, numerous continuity errors (Ator flies two different hanggliders during the climatic battle, watch for it, just an example) and an overall non-understanding of the concept of history (cavemen, "civilized" barbarians, castle-builders, all thrown in one film). If you're, like me, devoted to bad movies, this is the one of the series to see, you'll probably end up ROTFL. For the records: the Malta-filmed third part is actually quite watchable. Considering Joe D'Amato's other efforts this is probably his most entertaining movie, as he certainly has failed to deliver watchable horror or erotic movies. But I strongly have the opinion that this was completely by accident.

• Also called Cave Dwellers or REALLY BAD ITALIAN FILM

  GeneralB1999-10-31

  A bad low budget flick, it is a real pain to watch. The scenes shown in the credits appear to have nothing to do with the rest of the film. For some reason this movie, set in the Middle Ages, features grenades, a hanglider, and an atomic explosion. The main character, Ator, is supposed to be hero because he can defeat puppet snakes and spiders. For some reason the writers decided to name his sidekick "Thong"(or is it "Fong"?). This movie was just another reason to change the channel until MST3K came along, and, as always, made it very enjoyable. At the end, they give a hilarious review of all the film's continuity problems. The film is titled Cave Dwellers when shown in MST.