Yor: The Hunter From The Future (1983)

Italy never kept it a secret that they loved American movies and wanted, more than anything, to produce and present a product that would give the world audience something as entertaining, as audacious and as profitable as your average Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars. And for the longest time, Italy sure did give 110% in that area.

You can say they gave us a bunch of ripoffs - and you'd be right - but in the same breath they also gave us some intriguingly different variations on some American themes. Need I re-elaborate on their takes of Star Wars (Star Odyssey, StarCrash), Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Comin' At Ya!, Treasure Of The Four Crowns) and/or Alien (Terminator 2: Shocking Dark, Alien 2: On Earth)? I didn't think so; such movies are wild and woolly mulligans on American betters, yes, and whether good or bad (and by "bad" I mean "good by the virtue of being so bad") isn't the question: they gave us many fever-dream variations on a theme. Or two. Maybe three or four....

Would you expect a Star Wars movie to have waffle-faced bad guys or extremely sexy women who wear nothing but swimsuits 99% of their time onscreen? Would you expect a Raiders movie to have 3D effects thrust at you constantly or vicious cowboys? And what about Alien takes that jump back and forth from a Terminator subplot every so often or take place in a cave?

Variations on a theme are a dangerous thing: they either work or they don't. And the ratio is pretty lopsided - favoring the "don't"s a lot more often. But why should Italy even bother ripping off our movies?? Aren't they satisfied with their La Dolce Vitas and Bicycle Thiefs and Amarcords? Well, as a matter of fact they aren't - not when they are faced with a whole world out there that doesn't have the patience or the inclination to understand all that Italian bourgeois gobbledygook and just wants to be entertained by seeing stuff blow up, aliens attacking humans or searches for vast treasures - save your Italian sensibilities for the home team, paisans.

Now Conan movies: that's a bird of an altogether different crystal plumage. Arnold Schwarzenegger hit paydirt playing the muscle-bound Robert E. Howard standby - no less than twice - and proved there is money to be made in such comics-to-live-action adaptations. You just have to approach it with a little confidence, is all.

This was not lost on the Italians: sword and sandal epics were their Italian bread and garlic butter. for years with Hercules, Maciste, Ursus, Samson and Goliath and others tearing up deserts, castles, entire armies and big beasties alike. So when they saw these Americans aping their past successes (with an Austrian, no less!), they decided to throw it right back at 'em. After a few more Falls of New York and New Gladiators were taken care of first.

And they didn't even have to rip off Conan to do it!

In 1974, Ray Collins and Juan Zanotto created a comic book (graphic novel, yeah - whatever) series called "Henga, el cazador" which detailed the adventures of a wanderin', club swingin', dinosaur-fightin' caveman warrior by the name of...well, his name translated into Yor from Henga at some point or other. Apparently, it was popular enough in Italy to warrant its creation into a movie. Or maybe director Antonio Margheriti caught an issue and thought it was cool. Either way, we got Yor: The Hunter From The Future - a movie that may not be a Conan flick but certainly leaves its own mark.

Let us now hear the lamentations of the plot: Yor (Reb Brown) is a blond-haired, athletic prehistoric warrior who comes to question his origins, particularly with regard to a mysterious medallion he wears about his beefy neck. When he learns of a desert goddess who supposedly wears the same medallion, Yor decides that he must find her and learn his true identity. Accompanying him on this quest are cutesy cavelady Ka-Laa (Corinne Clery) and grumpy cavegramps Pag (Luciano Pigozzi) who encounter all manner of strange creatures such as bluish cavemen, various dinosaurs, and a strange futuristic society ruled over by a Darth Vader-ish wannabe known as Overlord (John Steiner). Oh, and lots of stuff gets blown up, destroyed, and otherwise erased from existence thanks to Yor and company. But what do you expect; this is Yor's world, and he's the man.

When you have a Conan-esque movie and can't afford Arnold Schwarzenegger, what do you do? Get the most muscle-bound guy you can find who will work for scale. Reb Brown had not yet been in Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf or Space Mutiny, so had not yet cemented his status as a screaming b-movie god. He had, however, starred in two TV movies playing Captain America, a couple of actual theater movies like The Sword and The Sorcerer and Fast Break, and been in episodes of "Happy Days" and "Three's Company". Enough to prove he was muscular, brawny, sculpted, tanned and everything else you'd want in your caveman comic-to-film adaptation. Playing Yor wasn't really all that difficult a task for Brown, it would seem - other than suffering with a bushy blond wig that suggests what the Dutch Boy Paint kid would look like after a year at Bally's - all the same, Brown looks to be at home in a breechcloth, swinging his club and grinning. A lot. This is the happiest caveman warrior I've ever seen in my life. Must've caught a gnarly wave at Rincon, dude.

The other actors may be good, or they may actually be bad - but to tell the truth I couldn't differentiate. Clery was actually a good actress in movies like The Story Of O, I Hate Blondes and Moonraker, and here she plays the sexy "hold-her-own" companion quite well. Pigozzi plays not only the grumpy caveguy here but was also a long-standing Italian character actor since 1954, featuring in such movies as Two Women, Blood and Black Lace and The Devil Has Seven Faces. Here, he wanders around being old and grumpy in equal measure, and is surprisingly agile in a scene or two.

And there IS an appearance by Aytekin Akkaya, whom you'll recognize as the man who played Ali in the greatest contribution to mankind ever - Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam (aka: Turkish Star Wars) - and was also Captain America (Turkish Branch) in 3 Dev Adam. I like it when people I recognize from movies only I would know about pop up in movies I watch. That's cool. So is Aytekin.

Unfortunately, everyone else pales in comparison, including the blue-skinned cavemen ape guys, futuristic warriors cross-bred with dung beetles and those robots from Disney's The Black Hole, and this Overlord guy as played by Steiner - who's played with varying subject matter in Massacre In Rome, Tenebrae, Salon Kitty and a little Gore Vidal-scripted Roman epic called Caligula (heard of it?) - here just leers, gloats, sneers and doesn't really do anything worthy of the title Overlord. He's evil just by inference, in other words. No one else is wearing a black cloak and had a black beard, so I guess he wins the title of Overlord by default. He does wear a barber pole real nice, though....

Overall, I guess the question is whether or not Yor: The Hunter From The Future is worth watching. let's forget any pre-conceived notions you yourself may have about good and bad. Being entertained by a movie is an altogether different proposition than whether you liked what you saw. and let's face it; muscle-bound grinning blond cavemen fighting dinosaurs and robots has an allure that not even Richard Canby and Pauline Kael can argue against.

Example? In one scene Ka-Laa is kidnapped by the blue-skinned caveman/ape guys and Yor and Pag must rescue her. As they stake out the blue guys' caves under cover of night, a pterodactyl sails overhead. Yor shoots it down with a bow and arrow and, since apparently rigor morits strikes quickly with pterodactyls, Yor picks it up and uses it as a hang glider to take the enemy by surprise and rescue Ka-Laa, Yor's theme music blaring all the while.

Hmm? Oh yes, Yor's theme music. This is music created and played by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis (better known as Oliver Onions), whom are quite the commodity in the world of latter-day Italian flicks (see Alien 2: On Earth) and the theme actually has a bouncy kind of Queen vibe to it (from their Flash Gordon theme days). It's enjoyable and gives us all the information we need to know about our hero before the first scene comes up. From what we discover, Yor is lost in the world of the past, he hears the echo of an ancient blast, he's a man of future, a man of mystery, he tries to lead the way in his search for a yesterday,mysteries, illusion, hygiene, his name is destiny (?), Yor is the touch of fire, he's proud of freezing liars, he never sees the sun, he's always on the run, and his days are gone...and from there it gets kind of silly. But anyway, it's got a good beat, you can dance to it and, after all, Yor is the man: what else do you need to know?

Director Antonio Margheriti is the man himself: the man who directed such classics (to our little corner of the world) as Horror Castle, The Long Hair Of Death, The War Of The Planets, The Snow Devils and Mr. Superinvisible. He certainly wasn't a man who shied away from the unusual and the bizarre - making him the perfect director for a world of cavemen and futuristic action. He even co-scripted the story adaptation with writer Robert D. Bailey - whose only writing gig was this one, but recouped nicely for himself by becoming a visual effects designer and supervisor for such film epics as Evilspeak, Blade Runner, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, A Nightmare On Elm Street: The Dream Child, Ernest Goes To Jail, Dances With Wolves, and a whole slew of TV series and specials. You gotta love a film specialist who never strays far from his inspirations.

This is a fun movie. Enough said. You will enjoy every single bit of business dealing with dinosaurs, cavemen, hang-gliding with pterodactyls, blond bodybuilder dudes in breechcloths lying on examining tables, hot chicks fighting to the death, blue cavemen, unexpected trapeze acts, spaceships (yes, SPACESHIPS) and Reb Brown in all his Conan-wannabe glory.

This HAD to have made money; I mean, look at it - this is the b-movie that all other b-movies should aim for. It has everything that you want to find in a movie with caveman and alien cultures, dinosaurs and laser battles, seductively-dancing Corinne Clerys and Oliver Onions singing their hearts out about Yor. Seek it out. Find it. Wrest it from the grasp of whatever little old ladies you have to. Resurrect a pterodactyl then beat it to death with your bare hands and hang glide on it if that's what it takes. Watch Yor: The Hunter From The Future.

You have no choice in the matter. This is out of your hands - this isn't even your world...it's Yor's.

Yor: The Hunter From The Future (1983) 2011-03-16T16:25:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: admin