Non-Horror Exploitation: I Guerrieri dell'Anno 2072 (A.K.A. The New Gladiators) (1984)

Ouch, Lucio Fulci normally makes entertaining movies at the very least, but that certainly doesn't go for The New Gladiators, which is pretty atrocious. 

In the future, two television networks compete for ratings by producing violent game shows. One network produces a modern day version of the Roman gladiators, only on motorcycles instead of chariots, and uses convicted murderers as the participants, The network decides it needs a champion for this sport, so they frame a constant winner from another game for murder, and place him on the show.

Apart from the whole movie being cheesy as hell (shiny space-suits, laserbeams and villains with evil laughs etc.), the movie is also plainly bad in most parts. Lucio Fulci seemed to have forgotten why people watch movies like this... For the action. In stead Fulci decides to go all ''artsy'' with bright, flashing neon lights and boring subplots. It takes more than an hour before we finally get to see the gladiator fights, who last for about 10 minutes. I'll be the first to admit that these action scenes do look pretty cool with a lot of explosions, some cool stunts and some gore here and there, but these action scenes are just too scarce.

Riz Ortolani provided a lovely soundtrack for this movie, filled with cheesy 80's tunes. Every now and then there's a cool scene (most notably the scene where the four gladiators are forced to hang onto a steel pipe for 10 minutes above a floor that's rigged with electricity). There's also the cool looking scenes where we see the miniature model of a futuristic Rome. 

So this turned out to be one of those few disappointing Fulci movies. The only way you can see this is a Fulci movie is by the camerawork and the few gore scenes (yes, even in this movie he had to fuck up an eye). The action scenes look cool but it doesn't make up for the first hour of complete bullshit (including dated special effects).

Fun Fact (Source: IMDB)

The original title of the movie is "I Guerrieri Dell' Anno 2072", but the date changes a lot according to some countries. In the UK, the title is "Rome 2033 - The Fighter Centurions", and even the first Italian VHS pushed the date a little later - it was re-named "I Guerrieri Dell' Anno 2079".