The Avenger (1962)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

THE LAST GLORY OF TROY - aka WAR OF THE Trojans, aka THE AVENGER - is the sequel to THE WOODEN HORSE OF TROY, a film that portrayed the Trojan War and also starred Steve Reeves as the eponymous hero Aeneas. This time around, the Trojans are a defeated people, having fled from their sacked city, but a mixture of courage and cunning sees them go on to found what is modern-day Rome.Unfortunately THE LAST GLORY OF TROY is a somewhat lacklustre sequel that more often than not is a rather BORING peplum flick. It has relatively lengthy running time, and much of that running time is made up of small talk between dull characters. Even Steve Reeves doesn't have much of a part to play here, feeling like a supporting character in his own movie, although the cast is populated with familiar faces including Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Liana Orfei and Gianni Garko.The film does pick up for its second half, offering a handful of battle sequences, although the choreography isn't particularly great in these. But it lacks the tight script and focus of the first film and with six different scriptwriters credited it feels like a bit of a confused mess, struggling to make sense of itself.

I haven't seen too many of these Italian sword and sandal movies that were so popular in the 1960s, but I feel pretty confident with my guess that experts of this genre would consider this entry to be a below average entry. The biggest problem that this movie has is that it is more often than not gosh-darn DULL. Especially the first half of the movie, which is talk talk talk and with almost no action. The second half of the movie slightly improves things - there is a lot of action. Unfortunately, the action is choreographed and directed in a way that saps out all excitement, instead generating a matter-of-fact feeling. Fans of Steve Reeves will be disappointed by the fact that he doesn't get to do a lot that is heroic, instead almost coming across as a secondary character. I will say that the movie does boast some good production values, but this eye candy does little to keep the audience awake.

This is an unnecessary and very much inferior sequel to THE Trojan HORSE (1961), evidently made on a reduced budget (though the murky, pan-and-scan print I watched certainly did no favors to it or the scenes from the original which were interspersed into the narrative as flashbacks!); Steve Reeves reprises his role of Enea - whose lineage, we are told, eventually led to Romulus and Remus and the founding of Rome (incidentally, the actor appeared in a peplum about that very event called DUEL OF THE TITANS [1961]!) - but his performance here is somewhat mechanical and less convincing...though that may be due to the English dubbing, whereas I had watched the earlier film in Italian!! As a whole, THE AVENGER (the print I watched bore the title THE LAST GLORY OF TROY, given to it when sold to TV) is only marginally better than the ordinary peplum: the plot is rather dreary this time around, in comparison to the fascinating events depicted in the original; the cast - despite the presence of Euro-Cult regulars like Gianni Garko (essaying the role of the villain) and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart (effectively dispatched by a hail of arrows in the style of Akira Kurosawa's THRONE OF BLOOD [1957]!) - is less interesting; and the battle sequences are only memorable for the ridiculously-shaped helmets with which the warriors on both fronts are saddled!!

It's easy to forget, when watching the worst or campiest entries in the sword & sandal genre, that the Italians also produced serious historical epics in the 1960s. Here, Steve Reeves reprises his role as Aeneas, whom he previously played in the superb THE Trojan HORSE (LA GUERRA DI TROIA).Having survived the destruction of his city, the Trojan noble and a band of survivors have made their way to Italy, where they hope to create a new life for themselves. But the region is already populated by various tribes, ruled by warlords, and Aeneas's longing for peace cannot be accomplished without recourse to battle and bloodshed.The screenwriters take their inspiration from Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid. The scale of the sets and the rustic costumes evoke a convincing atmosphere of Bronze Age Italy. (Small details like the king's peculiar-looking crown are based on authentic artifacts). The curious customs of the natives have the ring of historical truth; the bird-shooting contest on horseback is a brilliant bit of cinema.A part of Steve Reeves' notable legacy as a performer was his portrayal of three of the great hero figures of the ancient Greek and Roman world: Hercules (in two films), Romulus (in DUEL OF THE TITANS/ROMOLO E REMO), and Aeneas (in two films). Of the three, his Aeneas is the most complex, admirable, and ultimately heroic.