Gladiatress (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Menu Audio Interviews-Cast & Crew Featurette-Making Of Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	85:18 (Case: 84)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Brian Grant
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Nick Whitby Fiona Allen Frederick Allouard-Rubin Steve Benham Mark Benton Nick Cavaliere William Chubb Philippe De Grossouvre Pam Ferris Adam Fogerty Oliver Ford Davies Joe Fraser Tristan Gemmill
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	James Seymour Brett

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    A Gaul warrior escapes the clutches of the Romans by playing dead on a battlefield and swims to England in order to warn the Brits of Julius Caesar's impending invasion. Sadly, none of the English tribesmen particularly understand him and he's given to princess Worthaboutapig (Sally Phillips), the runt of the royal family who is not likely to do any better. Worthaboutapig, a bee-keeper by day, is constantly following in the shadow of Dwyfuc (Doon Mackichan), her fussy, man-hungry Amazonian elder sister.

    The Roman invasion is rather short lived, but long enough for Dwyfuc to find herself kidnapped while seizing some Latin love. The most expendable villager, Worthaboutapig, is sent on a seemingly futile quest to rescue Dwyfuc. When Worthaboutapig's guardian angel suggests she recruit her older sister Smirgut the Fierce (Fiona Allen), a fierce barbarian who had fallen out with her family years earlier, the quest becomes a real family affair.

    Gladiatress is a film vehicle for the girls from Smack the Pony (Sally Phillips, Doon MacKichan and Fiona Allen), one of the more off-the-wall British sketch comedy shows. It is quite a departure from the format that Smack the Pony fans would be used to. The set-up is significantly different to the satire of modern life that made up Smack the Pony and the comedy revolves around the ongoing storyline. Those differences aside, the humour is very much in the vein of Smack the Pony, only with more fart jokes.

    It is difficult to recommend Gladiatress to anyone who is not already a fan of Smack the Pony. Too much time is spent building the fairly weak plot and not enough time is invested into the gags. Many of the jokes may require a bit more thought than the masses looking for a Gladiator spoof are willing to invest (in fact, marketing this as a spoof may well be the film's biggest failing).

    The costumes, sets and locations deserve special mention. All are surprisingly authentic, particularly given the type of movie this is.

    Gladiatress is well worth a look for Smack the Pony fans, but the uninitiated would do better checking out Smack the Pony before diving into Gladiatress.

Video

    The film is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio that is 16x9 enhanced.

    The video quality is quite good. The picture is generally quite sharp and colours even and natural. Despite having a lot of scenes set in dim light and scenes featuring open flames, the picture is not notably grainy nor does it suffer noticeably in the way of MPEG artefacts. Shadow detail in these darker scenes is also very good.

    Mild telecine wobble is evident at 24:03 when a fairly static image is displayed for a few seconds, although it is not noticeable throughout the rest of the feature.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio is very good. Only one track is available, English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448KHz).

    Dialogue is very clear and in sync with the video throughout.

    The film makes good use of the surround channels and subwoofer where appropriate. The sound is quite immersive, particularly in battle scenes, and used well for comedic effect at some points in the film.

    The score borrows heavily from Gladiator, Troy and other recent sword and sandal epics. Whilst not very original, it fits the film very well.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu Audio

    The menus feature some snippets of soundtrack from the film and some basic animations.

Interviews-Cast & Crew

    Four press-kit style interviews are included, one with each of the three Smack the Pony girls and one with the director. Each are asked more or less the same questions and give short answers. Each interview runs for about 3-4 minutes.

Featurette-Making Of

    A disappointing 5 minute making-of featurette has been cobbled together almost entirely from snippets of the interviews that are on the disc and footage from the film. This one is a real waste of time.

Theatrical Trailer

    Standard, though quite humorous, theatrical trailer for the film.

    A bare bones version of the film is available in Region 1 and Region 2, putting the local release ahead by a nose.

    A mediocre film from the Smack the Pony team that can only really be recommended to fans of their previous work.

    The film has been given a very good audio and video transfer, but the range of extras is likely to disappoint fans.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall