Ator, Quest for the Mighty Sword Review

Can Joe D’Amato actually make a good fantasy adventure film? Let’s find out!

The Scores

Interest: 6/10

Acting: 5/10

Storyline: 6/10

Intensity: 6/10

Fights Guns or Otherwise: 6.5/10

Nudity: 0/10

Director Score: 6.5/10

Musical Score: 8/10

Dialogue: 6/10

Logic In The Film: 5/10

Ator, Quest for the Mighty Sword (Or known as Quest for the mighty sword, Ator III: The Hobgoblin, or in Germany Troll 3) is a 1990 film. It is a fantasy adventure film. Its run time is one hour and thirty-four minutes. The three main stars of the film are Eric Allan Kramer (Known for Lodge 49, Good Luck Charlie, American Wedding, and Robin Hood: Men In Tights), Margaret Lenzey (Known for Dragnet, Ator, Quest for the Mighty Sword, Chicago Hope, and Burglar), and Donald O’Brien (Known for The Name of the Rose, Zombie Holocaust, A Man Called Blade, and I guerrieri dell’anno 2072). Joe D’Amato takes the helm for the third time is this quadrilogy of films (Best known for Death Smiles on a Murderer, Ator, the Fighting Eagle, Emanuelle’s Revenge, and 2020 Texas Gladiator). A quick summary of the film is “ A god once gave a mighty sword to the king of Aquiles to bring justice to his people. Now he wants it back but the king sacrifices himself versus giving up the sword. A goddess loses her powers and is imprisoned until baby Ator turns 18, growing into the hero of our story, freeing her and fighting Dragons and goblins with the sword his dad protected to defeat evil and restore peace” Let’s take a closer look at the categories shall we?

Interest: For a moment, I though Joe D’Amato was the problem with these films, and maybe he was, but this film he actually did a decent job, especially when comparing the original two films to this one. HE has some blood in it, he has a decent story, and effects, costumes and dialogue are all pretty well done. The only strange thing is why he decided to use the Troll 2 costumes in the film. While they are ugly and I suppose fitting, knowing what god-awful film they are from throws suspense out of the window and actually makes you chuckle some seeing them. But all in all the film in one way or another held my interest.

Acting: Acting by the main cast is good. They know what they’re doing, and seem like veterans in their trade. They do well in convincing me that this is real and happening now. A problem arises though with side characters, they seem to be very rigid and almost like towns people who wanted to just be in a movie.

Storyline: This storyline is actually pretty solid. It finds its pacing very early on and makes sense, and you care just enough to keep the show moving. The story wasn’t anything brash and bold, but it did what it needed to, and it did it well enough that I think most people won’t hate it.

Intensity: Intensity of the film is average. When it needs to be intense it definitely is, but other times it can lull itself into some dullness, which sometimes is doing more story elements, but sometimes it is just slow because it doesn’t know what it wants to do as a film. Comparatively though, the film is much better than his first two.

Fights, Guns or Otherwise: The fights in the film are decent, the sword play is decent, blood is shown in the film, and some things seem like pro wrestlers planned them. There was no real verbal razors to speak of. And PTSD is still something that isn’t in the films, but again I’d never expect a film like this to deal with such a subject.

Nudity: Somehow there is no nudity in this film at all, and that is okay. It may have helped the film in some story telling element, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t hurt or help.

Director score: Joe D’Amato I thought at first maybe was an incredibly incompetent director with the first two entries into this quadrilogy. But I think after reviewing this that Miles O’Keeffe and Joe had a feud of some sort that isn’t known about and the movies turned out poorly because of that. Otherwise, I think he did a great job casting, had a decent story, the movie was shot well. The only real blunder perhaps is the Troll 2 costumes that were used, because, well, it's from a terrible movie, but they do fit and are creepy.

Musical score: Ator, Quest for the Might Sword I think has the best music, soundtrack, original pieces, whatever it may be in the whole series! It makes you feel like the scenes have something at stake and used to invoke emotion from the scene, and translates it to the viewer in a good way that any competent movie should be able to do.

Dialogue: The dialogue in the film is acceptable. Nothing is groundbreaking or new in the way of dialogue, and it fulfills its function as moving the story along as well as conveying information to the audience.

Logic in the Film: Logic in the film is actually alright. Physics make sense and work as expected. No major plot holes exist that ruin the experience besides the main character plays his dad, then 18 year old Ator. It is a little weird and confusing at first. Otherwise, it seems not too bad.

Did I enjoy the film, it wasn’t bad. Do I suggest others to watch it? Maybe. While it is better than the first two movies Joe D’Amato made in the Ator series, and it is supposed to be a reboot of sorts, I can’t help but think that watching other, more main stream fantasy adventure films would be much more your time because those are already on the edge of B movie territory anyway. And this film doesn’t have the budget or acting to compete to those levels. That being said, it isn’t a terrible film and is still enjoyable alone, and probably enjoyable with friends. I give Ator, the Quest for the Mighty Sword a 55%. It manages to just stay in the realm of entertaining for a single person viewing experience as well as fun for a whole group of people to rip on or watch collectively. Well, Until Next Time!.