I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Admirable film.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Ator il guerriero di ferro (Iron Warrior) is a 1987 Italian sword and sorcery movie and third entry in the Ator series, the only one not directed by the legendary exploitation and erotica director Joe D'Amato (a man of many pseudonyms) but instead directed by Alfonso Brescia (credited as Al Bradley) Joe D'Amato, who denounced this sequel as a cash-in to "Ator l'invincibile", a film which was a direct copy and cash-in of the 1982 John Millus film "Conan the Barbarian", would later return in 1990 to direct the fourth and final entry "Quest for the Mighty Sword" (Ator III: The Hobgoblin) "Iron Warrior" is often considered the overlooked addition in the series and often criticized for taking itself more serious than Joe D'Amato's more unintentionally campier movies.But for me, the change of tone is welcomed. Alfonso Brescia has a different style and a different vision making the movie a breath of fresh air and stands out in the series.Miles O'Keefe returns as Ator in name only. This would mark his final appearance as the bare chested warrior before being replaced by Eric Allan Kramer.The movie might not be as hilariously campy and entertainingly bad as the previous two entries or the forth film, but it's a unique film in its own right with some beautiful location shots of Malta that sets the mood for a mystical world perfectly, the most has clearly been used with the limited budget at the filmmakers disposal. The movie is an interesting blend of b-movie cheese and art-house creativity. The story is paper thin but is made up for it in the visuals.One scene in particular features Ator standing in front of a mirror as he practices with a sword, flexing his muscles, a poignant moment that orchestrates the often narcissistic vanity of heroes. There's also a catch, the scene has a second layer, with Ator training in his symmetrical reflection and the ball promptly shattering it, it creates a foreboding sense of the hero being warned that his twin brother Trogar, seduced by the dark side to be become the titular Iron Warrior, has returned.Despite it's more artistic tone, the movie contains many characteristics to Italian exploitation films, the dubbing, the over the top acting, in particular Elisabeth Kaza who is clearly having fun in the role of the villainess and gives an energetic flare to the film, and most of all, the blatant copying of more bigger known Hollywood movies. "2019: After the Fall of New York" borrowed from "John Carpenter's Escape from New York", "Hell of the Living Dead" borrowed from "Dawn of the Dead" in the case of "Iron Warrior", it's a mix of "Masters of the Universe" and for a complete genre change "Superman II".A noteworthy mention is the soundtrack, to many sci-fi fans they will no doubt recognize it as Jerry Goldsmith's theme to "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", later reused for the intro for "Star Trek: The Next Generation", once again following the movie's trend of being influenced by science fiction as opposed to traditional sword and sorcery.So sit back, sharpen your swords and embark on a mythical journey to the realm of Dragor for the unconventional Ator and fantasy film, "Iron Warrior"

I was flipping through the channels when I caught the very end of this, for lack of a better term, we'll call it a "movie". I saw an old lady dancing on a cliff. Then someone, I assumed he was the hero due to the cheekbones, shoves a torch in her face and she falls off the cliff.It was so utterly surreal that I wasn't sure if the movie was insane, or if I was insane and had created a vision of it in my madness. I resolved to record the thing the next time it was on and test the limits of my sanity. Yes, like a professor in a Lovecraft story, I had found a mysterious object that could warp your very mind and was convinced I could handle it. How wrong I was.There's not so much a plot as there are... several things that happen, none of which have any impact on the rest. Remember those cliffs I talked about? Well, get used to them, because almost every scene is shot on, in, or around them. Two kids play with something that looks like a tribble and one is kidnapped, inadvertently saving this poor kid from having to be in the rest of the movie. Three of Warrent's failed auditions for 'Cherry Pie' laugh on a video screen as a hula hoop prison twirls around what appears to be an older Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. A king is assassinated and the princess runs off to raise an army by not wearing a bra.I would like to reiterate: none of this matters. Not. A. Single. Bit. Except the part about the bra-less princess. I have a feeling that was the entire reason for this film being made.We then see the hero, he of the chiseled cheek, posing on a hill. His name is Ator, or Ugh-Toorrrrrr, or HrghTrgh, or whatever the actor is told to mimic, because English is clearly not their native language. Something happens with a woman burning his (or someone's, it's not entirely clear) house down with Ator inside. He survives by covering himself with a wet blanket and laughing at the concept of smoke inhalation.The movie then does what it does best: ignore what just happened and moves on to the next scene. The princess is running from some thugs on horseback and ErrTerr has to save her. She's taken captive by, and I truly wish I was making this up, tying each of her limbs to a horse. The obvious mannequin is then carried over a couple of pre-set spears. No, they don't stab her. No, she doesn't resist and dodge them. Her captors are just passing her over the spears five or six times while HrTuor kills them one by one. Somehow, they manage to keep the mannequin suspended even when they're down to one mook. Movie magic at its finest.I could go on like this. I really could. The movie never deviates from this pattern, one non-event following the next, each taking a bit of your soul away with it. The fights deserve mention for two reasons. One: there's no acting during them which is a nice break. Two: they provide a perfect example for how to do everything wrong. I showed the movie to two of my friends, both trained and certified stage combatants, and they punched me in the face for, quote "Ruining their careers by associating what they did with something like this," end quote. So there, this movie made two people hate what they do because it did it so bad. We're still friends, I deserved the face-punching.Music, costuming, cinematography, they're all the products of the '80's. Imagine a post-apocalyptic society rebuilding itself based on Mad Max and VH1 Classic music videos. Then shoot all that by a ten-year-old who got hold of daddy's VHS recorder and just figured out he can make people "disappear" by alternating the pause and record buttons. Set the whole mess to the worst synthesizer demo music you've ever heard wafting from the keyboard aisle at Wal-Mart and you've got Iron Warrior in a nutshell.

I can understand why fans of Sword and Sorcery films might be disappointed with this film. However it is a distinctive tale with some genuinely artistic direction. The Maltese locations are inspired especially when you consider the mystique surrounding those early cultures.The action sequences don't stand up to modern scrutiny, but the hero certainly looks the part. Trogar isn't the worst unstoppable creature I've seen. The two leads are restrained - you might say 'wooden' but that works well if you accept the film's legendary feel.The real liveliness of the film comes from the Witchy bad girl who is clearly having fun; and the Timelord-style goddesses who oppose her.The film isn't exciting but neither is it predictable. The script isn't bad at all and seems to have some ambitions with regard to dualism and the need for balance in the universe.I won't throw my copy away.

I saw another Ator movie on MST3K under the title "Cave Dwellers". It was one of the worst-made movies I've ever seen. Unfortunately, I saw Iron Warrior without the benefit of the MST3K crew, and it was very hard to endure. The film concerns the quest of Ator to stop a witch, but most of the time he just wanders around with no apparent agenda. He occasionally fights his brother, now the silver skull-masked "Master of the Sword", and is featured in many, many slow-motion scenes which seem to exist solely to make the movie last longer. Painfully boring, but it's a little better than Cave Dwellers in that it has some blood and nudity.