The Temple of the Mighty Bague

About as historically accurate as Lord of the Rings, but who cares! Rather than going for the continuous melancholic inevitability approach of the 2004 remake, this John Wayne outing goes all guns blazing for the ‘heroic last stand’ approach. Yeah, ok, so everyone dies, but there’s the usual rousing speeches and soapboxing that hollywood movies from the sixties do so well. Honourable mentions also go to the wonderful friction and palpable dislike between Travis and Bowie.

ACENESS. 12/10.

You really can’t beat a good 50s/60s “Swords and Sandals” epic, can you? Everything’s brightly coloured, the enemies are evil beyond belief, the heroes are manly beardy and the girlies swoon and flutter like swoony-fluttery things! And then there’s the awesome Harryhausen creations - in Jason we have a giant bronze statue, harpies, a hydra, and a whole squad of fighting skellingtons. Just awesome.

Who cares if it makes sense? Who cares if Jason’s gang actually are a bunch of god-sanctioned thieves. It’s ACE!

8/10

M’okay, overbearing workaholic mum takes extremely traumatised daughter and her equally traumatised horse to see Robert Redford. Redford is, apparently, a horse whisperer and is able to settle and calm the most disturbed of beasts. Presumably, it’s the horse he’s to look after, and not the daughter.

Anyway, horse is healed, daughter is healed, workaholic mum is healed - romance ensues. Except she is, of course, already married. Confusion ensues. Then they all, quite inexplicably, go home.

6/10.