You'll note that GLADIATOR GAMES has gathered no reviews here on the IMDb so far, and very few ratings for that matter. The reason for that is that this is an independent production masquerading as a regular studio-made movie. It was made in Italy, shot in the UK, is in Italian with English subtitles, and boy is it terrible.
The film opens with a lengthy preamble involving the eve of the Battle of Hastings and the various machinations put about by William the Conqueror. What does this have to do with gladiatorial combat, you may ask? The answer is nothing whatsoever. It's merely a set-up for a story which is subsequently told in flashback form over a board game of all things, so seems to have been included merely to pad out the overlong running time.
When the story does finally begin for real it's pretty terrible; a lot of non-actors standing around and chatting, and not much else. There are a handful of combat scenes in order to justify the title, but as with many independent movies, the action is shot horribly. Combine this with the stilted dialogue, the quality of the acting, and the insipid direction, and you have a real dog's dinner of a film.
