Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Just so...so bad

Amateur movie with Big budget

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Gordon Mitchell is back as Atlas / Maciste. This time he's out to battle a Cyclops - a rarely seen creature in the film. It's mainly about him, Queen Capys, and all the other people he's dealing with in Sadok, the Land of the Cyclops.The film is awful, boring and below average. The ending battle with the one-eyed creature is fine but short.My copy of the film is severely faded - it looks almost solid brown (similar to some of the old films of the 1920s), barely any color at all which didn't help matters. But that is fine because I doubt if I ever try watching this one again... I'd be surprised to find myself trying to.1/10

In the decades after Ulysses killed the Cyclops, his followers lead a peaceful life until a vengeful queen sets out to capture his heir. Like all evil queens in these movies, she's a brunette, and the good queen is a blonde. But there's more to the evil queen, pre-destined by fate to seek revenge, and she longs to escape her evil heritage in order to find love and redeem herself. That comes in the form of handsome Gordon Mitchell whose only goal is to prevent the infant heir from becoming hoer devours for the surviving cyclops. The evil queen's obviously over-ambitious and jealous suitor (think "Aladdin's" Jafar in a toga) stands in the way and you'll spend the film's running time looking forward to his come-uppance.Gladiator films are really comedys disguised as sword and sandal adventures. Go into these films with a razor-sharp tongue, because like midnight showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", you'll find yourself yelling sarcastic comments at the screen. That really is the only way to find fun in them as the quality is usually poor, dubbing terrible, and a predictability that some critics must have made a form critique for each of these and edited in individual comments appropriate for each film.

Pardon my confusion, but I sat down to what this Spaghetti Epic, or Sword and Sandal as they prefer to be called, which was called Atlas In The Land Of The Cyclops, I didn't understand why Atlas was being addressed as Maciste.This was nothing remarkable and not my taste at all, as the well and I mean well-worn story of a Greek hero saving the day and in this case, putting a baby upon his rightful throne. This was part of a huge series of films,. following Maciste, here played by Gordon Mitchell, credited here as Mitchell Gordon. Unfortunately, there was very little to recommended it if you're not already a hardened fan of the genre.The sound dubbing was typical, with one particular moment standing out, as two characters are talking with the baby in the scene, and the baby's crying sounding like another baby had turned up during the recording session and had inadvertently supplied the echoy dub.Personally, I find these films to be hard to watch or enjoy but there is certainly and audience for them. But do I feel that this genre is falling in to the abyss, not only of obscurity but most likely into oblivion. The print quality was appalling, leading me to believe that since these films have fallen out of copyright, that the negatives are but faded, decayed or outright destroyed.This was a 2.35:1 widescreen print in its day I would bet that nobody has seen that print in 40 years and are likely to NEVER see it. The colour was almost gone, faded to the negative's native browns and the sound mix, only mono in the original instance, was also mushy. Granted this was a very cheap DVD, with a 1.33:1 print, clearly, based on the title, the U.S. TV print and no doubt, a 16mm one at that.The Spaghetti Epics where always a cheap Italian alternative to Hollywood's Roman Epics, but with little demand and limited financial return for the genre, I can see the negatives disintegrating and these movies being lost forever. Is that a bad thing? YES: even though I may never willing watch one again, it is a crying shame that the art of these films may lost forever. NO film should be lost, as no book should be either, but unless remastering technology becomes cheap enough and the demand for what could be regarded as cult classics, as horror films such as Dawn Of The Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are, then I see little hope.

In Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops, our hero Maciste (Maciste, Atlas, Samson, Hercules - what's in a name?) must safeguard the life of a young prince whose father has been killed by the evil Queen Capys. The Queen wants the child so that she can break a centuries old curse by handing the baby over to the Cyclops she keeps chained in a pit. At first she attempts to use her womanly ways on Maciste, but to no avail. And as predictable as the sun following the night, the Queen ends up falling for Maciste. But there are others in the Queen's court who still seek the child and an end to the curse. Can Maciste rescue the baby and defeat the Cyclops before it's too late? Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops is what I'll call an above average example of the peplums or sword and sandal movies being pumped-out of Italy from the late 1950s to the mid 1960s. Gordon Mitchell is on hand to provide the beef of the title role. He may not have been as big as Steve Reeves (who all Italian movie muscle men must necessarily be compared) or some of the others, but he's got a winning smile and a definite athleticism about him. Chelo Alonso as Queen Capys is a real beauty and quite good in her role. In fact, the whole cast is quite nice. The Cyclops is very well done and another example of the fine, creative work being done before the advent of CGI - even by low-budget Italian filmmakers. Lots of good fight scenes, very few long drawn-out dialogue filled moments, and plenty of guys running around with those scrub-brush looking helmets - what's not to love. I guess my biggest complaints are with the dubbing and the state of available DVD transfers. The dubbing is incredibly stilted. In a few scenes, Mitchell sounds a bit like Tonto from the old Lone Ranger series. As for the available transfers, I can only assume that my enjoyment of Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops would have been enhanced had it not seemed I was watching the movie through dirty dishwater. Even with these negatives, and I realize I may be overstating things a bit here, I'll go ahead and give it a 7/10 and recommend it to fans of peplums.