huron567

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.