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Sunday, January 22, 2017

The Barbarians (1987)

An Italian American fantasy adventure directed by Ruggero Deodato, starring Peter and David Paul and Michael Berryman.
A pair of orphaned brothers are captured from a troupe of entertainers by an evil king. They are raised in a prison/work camp to be strong and hate the guards who torment them in masks. Eventually they are caused to fight each other by wearing the masks. They realize the trick, escape and must rescue the entire society of previous entertainers.
This was pretty cheesy. The plot drew a lot form Conan the Barbarian (1982) in the way that the brothers were raised in captivity by their enemy and become strong warriors. The characters were shallow, but the brothers were developed relatively well. We see their trials and tribulations with concise narration. These actors were clearly the main focus of the film and they played side-by-side in every other film they were in as well. They had a running gag of wanting the prop the other was holding and then changing their mind: "I like this one more". Just by faces, they both looked like Brendan Fraser to me. The video looked more '60s than '80s for the amount of grit, blur and over-saturation. It all looked like it came off pretty easily and casually. Nothing looked forced or unnatural. When the brothers kill the dragon was a classic scene that must be viewed to be appreciated. The audio had audible dialogue, heavy narration and an appropriately Conan-esque soundtrack. There was also some '80s pop-rock music. Overall, this is good for low-thought entertainment. I rate it adequate because I like the genre and year.

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