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Outlaw of Gor (1989)

(aka: The Outlaw)

Rating

[1.0]

Reviews and Comments

"A couple of hours -- more or less -- as the time flies."

Outlaw of Gor, filmed at the same time as its predecessor, Gor, is just as bad and suffers from the typical fantasy movie idiocy that plagues so many. For example, why are all the villains not only demonstratively evil but stupid, as well? There's a scene in Outlaw of Gor where the villainess oversees a slave mining operation. She insures that the slaves are being worked all day long without rests. Slavery is wrong -- we all know that -- but why do so many movies equate evil with stupid? You get more work out of slaves by giving them time to rest and recuperate their strength. A realistic slave lord character would treat the slaves like subhuman objects but would at least know how to manage them efficiently. The villainess in this movie has no such consideration, and it gets worse: when a cave-in begins and the slaves try to run for cover, she orders that they be forced to stay, because, she says, the work must not stop. What work!? The slaves can't do any work while the ceiling is collapsing in on them! All they can do is die! And they do. And she orders a new batch of slaves to haul the dead away and then says something to her advisor to make sure he approved of her "obviously" correct actions. Bright girl. Instead of live slaves, she's got dead ones. With a nemesis this witless, there's no suspense whatsoever about whether the goodguy will triumph.

Let me take the story from the top. Cabot, the "hero," is summoned from Earth and is transported to Gor, along with the most annoying single human being in the universe. Let me just say I don't get the logistics behind the transportation magic. They cross the desert, have a lame fight scene in which Cabot repeatedly knocks people out by knocking them to the ground and hitting their heads (and sometimes just their collar bones) exactly two times. Although there are tons of people that attack, only one attacks at any given moment. The rest run around in circles on and off camera until it's their turn.

They get to the city where Cabot has left the love of his life, and let me say now that there is no possible way you can miss the hero's name, because it's said about 80 times (I'm not joking) in the first fifteen minutes. Mostly it's said by the incredibly annoying guy. They go back out in the desert and run into some slavers that are trying to rally up some more slaves -- but they're insidiously ineffective at it. One guy would grab a potential slave around the waist, toss the person into a small pile, then go run after another -- meanwhile the potential slave gets up and runs away again the second he's left unattended.

Along the way, Cabot rescues a random slave woman who later wants to get intimate with him. He declines, saying he loves another woman, and then they wrap their arms around each other and go to sleep. So apparently cuddling all night (with only that skimpy fantasy desert garb on) is ok to do with anybody.

While they sleep, badguys capture them. Cabot is knocked unconscious as he sleeps when one of the badguys hits him (twice) in the chest. During his capture, the evil queen's priest/advisor pastes dirt in his mouth to make him submit. Later the queen brings them out and has them attacked by big fat guys. Cabot dispatches them all, of course, then, in protest, bends the sword over his knee with one swift, effortless motion. Evidently their swords are made out of aluminum foil. Somebody throws the slowest moving spear in the world at the queen, and they live happily ever after. Annoying Guy goes back to Earth, but apparently he's forgotten everything about it, because he no longer knows enough to get out of the road.

The acting, as in the first movie, is atrocious, but the villainess was the worst. She speaks every line in the same fake angry voice. It's not menacing at all -- it's just funny.

My favorite line of dialogue is the queen's answer to the hero's question, "Why don't you fight me?" She replies, "What? And deprive myself the pleasure of watching you die?" My goodness. I guess it's an unwritten law on the planet Gor that when you run somebody through with a sword, you have to close your eyes. Maybe that's why the hero kept winning all the cheesy fights.

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