ENDGAME is a highly entertaining slice of Italian cheese, served at least ten weeks past its sell by date. Just one of a rash of post-apocalyptic films which emerged from Italy (usually amid nuclear blasts) in the early '80s, it's a fun-filled action adventure film all the way. The Italians certainly had a sense of style - and fun - that their American counterparts lacked. Take the film's American version, for instance, Schwarzenegger's much better-known THE RUNNING MAN. Does it have innocent blind men being gunned down? The heck it does. America is too restricted to make really good films any more, but you can't say that about the Italians. They sure know how to make a film, and who cares who they offend? It comes as no surprise that the film was directed by Joe D'Amato. Joe, God rest his soul, was never really renowned for making brilliant films. But whether his films were enjoyable… well, it depends on the viewer. I for one am impressed. What makes ENDGAME such a masterpiece - however odd that may seem - is the absurdity of it. It could have just been a typical gladiator film, but no. There are 'regressive mutants' who are supposed to have become half-fish (hmm, sounds like something Lovecraft might have thought of). To show this, they have those little shiny discs stuck all over their faces. And when they die they bleed water. Or blue paint in this case. The other 'regressive mutants' look very much like rejects from PLANET OF THE APES.To add to the fun, mix in a cast of European 'stars' such as Laura Gemser (famed for her role in the BLACK EMANUELLE films of the 1970s) as the love interest who inevitably loses her top halfway through, George Eastman (ANTHROPOPHAGUS THE BEAST) as a psycho, shotgun-armed warrior (very good role here folks) and even Bobby Rhodes, the star of DEMONS and its sequel, wearing a robe and carrying a big spiked club thing! Rhodes is really the icing on the cake. Italian peplum fans will be delighted to spot former muscleman Gordon Mitchell in a small role as a baddie.What else is there? An almost constant stream of action, from the single punch-ups in the first half to the full-scale wars in the second. People kick either other when they're down, punch, and there's even a warrior called Ninja (who breaks the neck of a poor guy asked to attack him in class) who jumps around and kicks people in the face (I thought that was just something Jean Claude Van Damme did). The action is very second rate but this makes it all the more entertaining. There's lots of gore around as well as plenty of nudity for enthusiasts of that variety. Cliver is excellent in his Mad Max type role. ENDGAME is not a well made film by any means but it's a heck of a lot of fun and highly entertaining. So much so that I'm giving it a high rating for effort. A highly underrated cheesy classic.

What would a film written & directed by a ten-year old boy look like? That may sound like a cute idea but I assure you it's miserable to suffer through.Now I've seen yet another Laura Gemser performance but I am not kidding when I say that you'd see more of her in a 30" commercial for dish soap. My girlfriend is less covered up when she's walking around in a below-zero blizzard, and at least I get to see her all day, instead of simply several seconds now & then.I realize that part of this supposedly features a TV battle game but any such TV show would be canceled after one episode. This whole film appears as though they were attempting to make all characters move as if in a video-game. That may sound like an interesting concept but it is not. If you wish to make things more exciting, you speed things up; you don't slow everything down."Futuristic action" No, it is not. "Futuristic" means as if in the future. It does not mean claimed to be set in the future but written & produced by such uncreative slags that it more resembles the distant past, as predicting the future would require imagination, intelligence, and a decent budget. "Hey, Zimbo, they didn't have machine guns or motorcycles in the distant past." But if they had, they wouldn't have gotten off their zippy transportation, dropped their automatic weapons, and fought hand-to-hand with swords. Those moronic nonmutants deserved to die! This was "action" in the sense that jumping off your scooter and engaging in a "battle" dance is, i.e. it was not."fun" "romp" -- No character in this film had any fun, and I don't grasp how viewers can. I guess some people enjoy watching hospital soap operas but not me. "Romp" implies fun & humor but I saw none whatsoever. There's a difference between a train wreck and a panel van which slowly gets mired in a puddle of muck. Oh, but we were taught an important lesson about how we should be kinder to the mutants we meet, as they likely have hidden good features to make up for their mutantism? How could Laura Gemser have sunk this low?

I really don't like using the word "cheesy", but it seems to be the one that applies best here. "Endgame" is likely to be picked up only by post-apocalyptic fantasy fans, or Joe D'Amato completists. So what do they have to look forward to? Some good ideas (the hero at one point acknowledges that men like him, living by their fists and guns are "the past"), some cliched ideas (the hunting game that's the most popular show on TV, the "Magnificent Seven"-type enlisting of the hero's sidekicks), and some weird ideas about telepathy: apparently the hero is not telepathic, and he can't read people's minds, yet he can communicate telepathically with a "gifted" woman. Get it? (*1/2)

Okay, this mix of "Escape from New York" and "Le prix du danger" could have been better, especially if they chose a better actor as the "hero" But. there is the typical appeal of Italian B-movie and the physical presence of George Eastman. Michele Soavi plays a doctor at the end. Saw this in France when I was young (!) and again at the Paris cinémathèque, though some bits of film were missing. Not as good as Sergio Martino's "2019 Dopo la caputa di New York", but worth a look.