Captain Thunder (2011)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I recently came across this movie and being a big sword and sorcery fan had to give it a look. Apparently it's based on comic which I wasn't aware of, but you don't need to have read it or even heard of it to take in the story. Overall while it was never going to win any awards, I thought it was fun, light hearted adventure. It had some good action scenes and some nice looking scenery. The violence is fairly tame, so you don't have to worry if you're squeamish. There are a couple plot holes, the most obvious is the "worm" that appears several times during the movie. Most notably at the end but didn't really add anything and could probably have been ditched altogether without affecting the story at all. The actors were never going to especially challenged, but the main hero is suitably heroic, the sidekicks are have their own moments of glory and provide some comedic relief and the Viking Princess was suitably feisty. The villains are fairly generic, but provide enough of a danger to make you wonder how things will pan out. I wasn't expecting much, but the movie kept my interest right the way through. This movie isn't going to change any lives, but if you're a sword and sorcery fan, it's a harmless way to fill in 90 minutes.

The box doesn't tell you, but the DVD contains English subtitles for the Spanish- language soundtrack of this Spanish movie. I don't know which version the other reviewers watched, but the acting didn't bother me all that much with the actors' original voices sound-synched in Spanish. If you watch it, try the Spanish version first. I'm not exactly sure why the protagonist's name, Capitan Trueno (Captain Thunder), gets translated as "Prince Killian" in the subtitles and on the DVD box. No one calls him "Prince" on the Spanish soundtrack, and even the subtitles leave in all the references to thunder in dialogue meant to explain his name. (And more than half the time the subtitles correctly translate "Captain" when other characters are addressing him, so the occasional mistranslation, "Prince," like the use of "Killian," is a distraction.)This is the kind of film I'd have enjoyed as a kid in my early teens: lots of sword- swinging male bonding, a sexy blonde heroine whom the hero eventually gets to kiss, a wizard, a monster, a Bud-Spencer-type strongman with a funny "midget" sidekick, and an assortment of villains, some with magical powers. And for modern kids, despite the Third-Crusade setting, there's a positive friendship that quickly develops between the nominally Christian Captain and a nominally Muslim prince. The film looks great, shot as it is on the same Spanish locations where classics like EL CID were filmed, and it has a lush orchestral background score reminiscent of those old historical epics. The script, however, is definitely on the level of a 1960s kid's matinée "second feature." Yes, the Spanish text on the comic-book frames of the end credits indicates that there will be a sequel. If the same cast returns, I'll watch it - but only in their own language.

Based,like many French or American movies of today on a comic strip;I have never read it ,but the movie belongs to another era :the late fifties and the early sixties .All the cardboard characters we have seen a hundred times or more, are present: the dashing handsome prince ,the gorgeous (good) princess,the bad sadistic woman (a touch of racism here maybe) ,the poor people overburden with taxes (scenes taken by force from Robin Hood),the traitor,the would be comic relief provided by a giant named Goliath,always stuffing himself with food,his sidekick ,a midget;and to top it all, right in the middle of the crusades, help is on the way in the shape of a Muslim!Maybe words of wisdom for our troubled times ! The movie begins with historic pretensions ,but quickly opts for a poor man's heroic fantasy;there are as many plot holes as in Swiss cheese and,after this far-fetched tale, we can only be satisfied that the holy Grail is left in good hands.As the prince swears to his mentor he 'll always side with the underdog ,they might make a sequel.

Cheese everywhere. But not exactly a funny piece of cheese. The acting is flat out terrible. Peris-Mencheta as Capitán Trueno is awful, but compared to the actors portraying Crispín and Goliath... well, he takes the lead. Yeah, I know these two characters are intended to provide comic relief. They don't. The sexual tension between these two hero sidekicks is the only funny part in this. The plot is silly. C'mon, a giant worm shown all along the movie (both in Spain and Holy Land!) as a not very subtle red herring, only to appear as stupid deux ex machina impersonation at the end to kill the villain? The villains are actually cheesy fun, both the witch and the main antagonist, unlike the heroes who are just plain lame. The acting of the gorgeous Natasha Yarovenko as Sigrid goes downhill during the movie. I usually enjoy bad movies a lot, but the acting here kills it for me. Sure, I concede that there is some effort behind the movie. The cinematography is OK, the CGI are passable and the costume designs are pretty good. . This movie took a lot of time to be released, so I think they worked hard to get the budget needed for this stuff, but they seemed to forget the important details. You know... like acting?