Amazons (1984) Reviews

• Sympathy for the women warriors

  corgi-32003-07-04

  I was surprised when I saw this movie, as it's one of the few essentially sympathetic portrayals of the concept of an Amazon culture I've ever seen committed to visual media. When I noticed who the director was, I was even more delighted (and understood where some of the beautiful shots came from). For all of its nearly black&white villain-hero dichotomy, it has some interesting concepts behind it, about how a shadow-culture could survive for millennia and why.

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• A Group of Sophisticated Amazons from the Helena Corporation, Plot to Take Over the US Government

  priestesseury2005-06-12

  This is a tastefully done 1980s film about a group of Amazons who are plotting to take over the US government. The women are not like the women in most Amazon films, barely clothed, however they are political minded, strategic military elitist. They run an organization called Helena and through it recruit and eliminate people that would be helpful or not helpful to their cause. If you are a fan of mythology, this movie is a must have. It starts in ancient times and continues into the Modern 1980s. With movie stars like Madeline Stowe and Tamara Dobson... you definitely won't regret this film. Lets push for it to come out on DVD soon!!!!

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• Bland made-for-TV movie

  Woodyanders2013-09-30

  A secret society of deadly warrior women plan on taking over the world by placing fellow females in positions of power after killing off various important and influential men. Sound cool and exciting? Well, this teleflick fails to realize the complete potential of its fun premise thanks to Paul Michael Glaser's competent, but dry direction, sluggish pacing, David Soloman's blah and talky script, and a too serious tone that surprisingly avoids any possibilities for campy humor. Fortunately, the sound cast keeps it watchable: Madeline Stowe makes for a personable heroine as the sweet and spunky Dr. Sharon Fields, Jack Scalia contributes an engaging turn as the hunky and persistent Lt. Tony Monaco, Jennifer Warren does well as ruthless, yet pragmatic and sympathetic lead villain Dr. Diana Cosgrove, Tamara Dobson provides some much needed (and appreciated) spark and thus steals the show as the lethal Rosalund Joseph (Dobson shows off her impressive martial arts prowess in a couple of scenes), Stella Stevens makes the most out of her supporting role as the glamorous Kathryn Lundquist, and veteran character actor William Schallert has a nice bit as the ill-fated Congressman Stanford Barstow. There's some decent action in the last third, but it's too little and too late to alleviate the general tedium. Both Dean Cundey's sharp cinematography and the moody score by Basil Poledouris are up to par. An okay time-waster.

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• Not Very Good--Too Eighties and Too Serious--But in a Funny Way

  reel_emotion2005-06-07

  I can't see why I ever liked this movie--and even recommended to family and friends. Maybe I was reading too much Camille Paglia when I saw it on HBO in the early '90s--although it was a TV movie made in 1984. It's very '80s by the way. Amazons seems to take itself a bit too seriously. In what world would there be an underground group of Amazons, trying to kill off the male "race" one powerful rich dude at a time? Okay, I guess it does make it a bit fun. Amazons could have been better. Starksy (director Paul Micheal Glasser) does a good job at times with the images and music in the film. But there is too much time with the doctor, played by a pre-famous, pre-plastic surgery (?) Madeleine Stowe, who discovers the evil Amazons and becomes the only good woman in this movie. Too many hospital scenes and scenes with Jack Scalia are just stupid, typical TV movie fare. One unbelievable scene is unintentionally funny, in which the cop, Scalia, tells Stowe about his fear of going after the Amazons because his partner killed himself for messing with the wrong person (a senator.) Jennifer Warren is good as the hospital administrator (and leader of the Amazons.) There is a very good scene where she threatens a hunky man who she just had a one night stand with, with a letter opener--he was bad mouthing Amazons, dismissing them as a myth! Amazons ends with a confrontation at the Amazon's Helena office. Stowe throws some beakers of chemicals that amazingly start a fire that kills off the Amazons--but Scalia and Stowe somehow survive. The ending shot is the president winning with the female vice president--who is wearing the Amazon symbol, the cross-bow bracelet--but, wait, police come in and arrest the VP. It would have been kind of cool if they left it up in the air--what if the Amazons were still out there, waiting to destroy mankind--but they didn't. How much influence could a vice president have anyway? Only seek this movie out if you are really, really bored.

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• Watchable comic-book stuff or mad reactionary warnings? You be the judge. (But go for the first one...)

  Victor Field2003-11-20

  Given that "Amazons" aired the year Geraldine Ferraro was Walter Mondale's running mate, it's difficult not to see this movie as a cautionary tale by paranoid men (specifically, writers David Solomon and Guerdon Trueblood). The plot has a secret society of voluptuous women plotting to take over the world by wiping out powerful male adversaries (one of the women is, in fact, a political candidate's second-in-command), and framing a young doctor for the death of politico William Schallert. These women (Jennifer Warren, Stella Stevens, Tamara Dobson etc) are descendants of the original Amazons - though how they managed to be descendants, since Amazon women weren't allowed to fraternize with men, is never explained (or maybe it was, and I've just forgotten in the years since I saw this movie) - and anyone who complains about how the likes of Buffy Summers leave men without their genitals is likely to be pleased that heroine Madeleine Stowe has a hunky cop (played by TV veteran Jack Scalia) in her corner. The movie does sound misogynistic, but given that the heroine is a woman and that there are problems in the ranks of the society it's not sexist enough to qualify; but it's also not as much fun as it could have been. (It's also worth noting that these Amazons have two breasts, even in the prologue set on a battlefield - Amazons generally had one breast removed to make it easier to get out the arrows in battle, but try getting that on TV, even today.) The criminally wasted Basil Poledouris does supply another good score, however; and the not entirely unexpected open ending does, however, come off. But one shouldn't be surprised to learn that Paul Michael Glaser's career has by now led him to be promoting caravans in the UK with his (by now very) old mate David Soul. "We shall make war as we have lived our lives, as sisters of the bow. And our war shall be the war of Amazons, against the race of Man."

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