← Back to Reviews
in
Joe D'Amato, essentially Italy's Jesus Franco. He;s directed countless movies, and yet the general consensus is that very few of them are any good. He's done every genre in the book, including straight-up porn. But he's probably most famous for one reason: Ator the Flying Eagle. It wouldn't be long before he'd take his B-movie evil to America where he would capitalize on the cyberpunk buzz with cheesefests like Endgame.
In this dystopian thriller, Ron Shannon, a hotshot player in a kill-or-be-killed game show is called upon by a mutant to escort her mutant community out of the city, because the government is hiding the fact that they're killing off these mind-readers. Reluctant at first, our Chuck Norris knockoff with shitty moves when he hears about the paycheck. But he's being hunted by the same government agents who are killing off the mutants, and so Shannon even needs to hire his comrade who fought against him in the so-called friendly sport and was spared of death.
First, let me say this about the production values: in terms of quality, everything is the bare minimum of acceptable quality, save the incredibly fake-looking cars. The sets and the effects are all fine for the movie, but there is absolutely nothing that stands out. This is apparent from the opening night sequence with the average moonlight and dust surrounding a broken down dystopian city. And the action sequences aren't usually very good. The movie makes too strong of a point of our man being a superhuman killer, even though his moves really suck.
The costumes aren't entirely convincing, especially for some of the more grotesque mutants. And the make up for the "futuristic-looking" people is mostly just triangular-patterned metallic face paint. In fact, the community of blind people are just wearing the same black robes. As he was walking towards the heroes through the desert sands, immediately ringing in my mind was: "Lord Malek was most displeased."
However, the subplots they invent concerning psychic powers can occasionally be interesting, such as the one concerning the prisoner kept by the community of blind mutants, all the way to the end of that. Otherwise, the movie's simple and derivative. It takes the simplest plotlines for these kinds of movies and runs on them with no sense of character development.
I had a little difficulty deciding if this was better or worse than Ator the Fighting Eagle, but as the movie got more and more typical, I decided that it was slightly worse. They're very close in quality, so if I was to recommend one for anyone here, I think I'd recommend the more serious sci-fi movie despite being slightly worse in quality.
= 29 / 100
Endgame
(1983) - Directed by Joe D'Amato
-----------------------------------------------------
Post-Apocalyptic / Sci-Fi / Action
-----------------------------------------------------
"Fate decides the winner of Endgame, not me"
(1983) - Directed by Joe D'Amato
-----------------------------------------------------
Post-Apocalyptic / Sci-Fi / Action
-----------------------------------------------------
"Fate decides the winner of Endgame, not me"
Joe D'Amato, essentially Italy's Jesus Franco. He;s directed countless movies, and yet the general consensus is that very few of them are any good. He's done every genre in the book, including straight-up porn. But he's probably most famous for one reason: Ator the Flying Eagle. It wouldn't be long before he'd take his B-movie evil to America where he would capitalize on the cyberpunk buzz with cheesefests like Endgame.
In this dystopian thriller, Ron Shannon, a hotshot player in a kill-or-be-killed game show is called upon by a mutant to escort her mutant community out of the city, because the government is hiding the fact that they're killing off these mind-readers. Reluctant at first, our Chuck Norris knockoff with shitty moves when he hears about the paycheck. But he's being hunted by the same government agents who are killing off the mutants, and so Shannon even needs to hire his comrade who fought against him in the so-called friendly sport and was spared of death.
First, let me say this about the production values: in terms of quality, everything is the bare minimum of acceptable quality, save the incredibly fake-looking cars. The sets and the effects are all fine for the movie, but there is absolutely nothing that stands out. This is apparent from the opening night sequence with the average moonlight and dust surrounding a broken down dystopian city. And the action sequences aren't usually very good. The movie makes too strong of a point of our man being a superhuman killer, even though his moves really suck.
The costumes aren't entirely convincing, especially for some of the more grotesque mutants. And the make up for the "futuristic-looking" people is mostly just triangular-patterned metallic face paint. In fact, the community of blind people are just wearing the same black robes. As he was walking towards the heroes through the desert sands, immediately ringing in my mind was: "Lord Malek was most displeased."
However, the subplots they invent concerning psychic powers can occasionally be interesting, such as the one concerning the prisoner kept by the community of blind mutants, all the way to the end of that. Otherwise, the movie's simple and derivative. It takes the simplest plotlines for these kinds of movies and runs on them with no sense of character development.
I had a little difficulty deciding if this was better or worse than Ator the Fighting Eagle, but as the movie got more and more typical, I decided that it was slightly worse. They're very close in quality, so if I was to recommend one for anyone here, I think I'd recommend the more serious sci-fi movie despite being slightly worse in quality.
= 29 / 100