I'm probably just so used to seeing movies shown on MST3K being awful that I found this to not be that bad. It probably helps that it actually does get good near the end with all the explosions and stuff. The special effects get better. I still wouldn't recommend it of course. This was the time when most movies were in color. You can kind of see how gaudy it looks. It's not as bad as some other movies, but still pales in comparison to even older movies like the 1940 "The Thief Of Baghdad". I guess the atmosphere wasn't bad.Of course, I haven't been following the Hercules films in this series that much, so I didn't really care what was going on. I thought Atlantis was supposed to be underwater? What's the deal with that? A lot of the acting is pretty corny too. I guess this series as a whole wasn't as awful as most. It starts so abruptly. There's just all this action out of nowhere. Well, at least there was something going on at the beginning. **

Ostensibly these films provided an opportunity to fill the screen with fantastic spectacle, but still, you can't ignore the fact that most of the time you're going to be watching an incredibly buff and virile actor running around clad in next to nothing. I can't help but wonder who the intended audience was here. Anyway, Hercules and the Captive Women is a genre exercise and so, if we are to properly evaluate it, we should run it against the Hercules Movie Checklist to see just how well it delivers the mandatory elements! 1. Is the title character portrayed by an actor with an almost ridiculously huge and bloated physique? Check! 2. Does he lift large, seemingly heavy objects and chuck them around? Check! 3. Does he fight a wild animal? Check! 4. Does he fight absurd monsters or creatures from outer space? Check! 5. Does he cause a natural catastrophe (buildings toppling, mountains exploding, world economies collapsing)? Check! 6. Does he bend iron objects out of shape and then bend them back again? Check! 7. Is there an evil queen? Check! 8. Does she have the hots for Herc? Check! 9. Does she try to drug Herc with poisoned wine? Check! 10. Does she seem to really enjoy killing other people? Check! 11. Do the men wear miniskirts while the women wear diaphanous gowns? Check! 12. Are there chariots, spears, bows and arrows and soldiers wearing helmets and carrying shields? Check! 13. Are there enormous temple sets? Check! 14. Are there caves? Check! 15. Are there secret passages and trap doors? Check! 16. Is there at least one Pagan Splendor Dance Number? Check! So, to be fair, this movie does seem to touch all the Hercules bases! It loses points, however, for the inclusion of several unwanted and unwarranted elements. The first is a hopelessly convoluted and confusing plot that is so riddled with holes that it resembles a corpse at the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The second is the pointless inclusion of Hylas, the son of Hercules. He seems to be in the movie to provide some kind of love interest for the Princess who is condemned to die to save the life of her mother, the evil queen. But shouldn't the Herc be her love interest? It seems to me that a love triangle between Hercules, the queen and the princess offers more plot possibilities than wedging a son into things. There is really nothing he does in the flick that couldn't have been accomplished by Daddy with a lot less plot machinations. Hylas really drags the movie down. The third is the inclusion of Timotheus, the dwarf and companion to Hylas. My guess is that he is there to provide comic relief, although the movie is already so full of unintentional laughs that Timotheus really comes off as completely unnecessary. In fact, he is just plain annoying. There are some folks in Hollywood who think that dwarfs are completely adorable and endlessly entertaining. Those folks are wrong!

I'm not sure how much of this movie was "real." There was a small amount of dialogue that was obviously inserted into the movie just for Elvira's version. Such as when two characters from ancient Atlantis mentioned Elvira.But surely the dialogue that Elvira ranted about really happened. I'm guessing nearly all the lines spoken were really in the movie. The voices didn't match the actors' lips moving, though, but I should have realized: this meant the movie was dubbed. I've seen only one humorously dubbed movie, but because that was a respected movie, I concluded the original must also have been humorous and that the lines were legitimate. I could also tell at least one actor did a really good job without ever hearing him speak. I didn't have that advantage here, so I can't really evaluate anyone's performance.One thing is certain: this was a poorly dubbed movie. The actors speaking English were atrocious. Elvira commented on how bad it was but I never saw her say that was why. And I finally had to agree: they couldn't have made a worse movie if they were trying to make it bad. It is entirely possible the original in Italian was actually worth seeing. But I have only this version to evaluate.Here's what I believe happened: in ancient Greece, Androcles felt threatened by a nearby kingdom and took Hercules, one of his greatest warriors, and a group of slaves, along with the midget (Elvira's term) Timotheus, along on a large boat to deal with the problem. Before leaving, Hercules said goodbye to his wife and his son Hylas, and it appeared he really loved them and was going to miss them. What he didn't know was that Timotheus was hiding Hylas in the boat.There was some sort of mutiny and the slaves left. Androcles and Hercules felt that leaving the slaves behind was not cruel because they were still alive and the island had resources. But the land of Atlantis, normally invisible to humans, became visible. Hercules landed there and rescued Ismene, daughter of the Queen of Atlantis, who was imprisoned in a stone. He did this by defeating an evil creature who kept changing shape. The people of Atlantis had to make sacrifices to please one of the gods, so Ismene was chosen but now could be set free. Or could she? The title suggests more captive women, but there weren't any. Instead, Hercules had to deal with a queen who seemed appreciative and yet at the same time wanted Hercules dead. Plus Androcles was missing. And the young boys of Atlantis were being sacrificed in order to create a master race. Something similar to a leper colony was the result of failures in the attempt.That's what I believe happened, leaving out the ending.The plot seems interesting enough. Hercules faces up to all his challenges, and even though he has some really big ones, he is after all one of the greatest warriors of his time. And Timotheus is a good friend, even if his dialogue is difficult to understand. Hylas also proves very helpful. There are plenty of good fights, and one of the effective-looking weapons, never actually used, reminds me of a modern movie microphone.Maybe this isn't so bad.

This is definitely a better movie than a lot of other Italian Hercules productions out there. Not that the quality of this movie is being exceptionally high though. It still is a movie that brings some nice entertainment, no matter how ridicules the movie often gets.This was the first time that British Reg Park took on the Hercules role. Park was a multiple time Mr. Universe champion, just like Steve Reeves, who had played the character of Hercules in previous movie productions. His physique of course definitely helped him getting these sort of roles. His career also ended pretty soon after he started to age, like often happens to these types of 'actors'.Like all these sort of Italian swords and sandals productions, it's a very cheap and often laughable looking movie, even though the movie is also being grand to look at with its enormous and colorful sets. The movie does use some silly early effects, though you just can not accuse this movie of not being creative. It just doesn't always works in the movie its own advantage.I of course couldn't care less about the story of the movie and all that seemed to matter was that the movie. All that seems to matter for this movie is that it's being entertaining. The movie does really bring some silly fun, also long as you of course don't except a movie with class or of a very high quality.A better movie than most other Italian Hercules productions and also certainly way better than its current reputation and rating.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/