Fourteenth century Italy and the beautiful princess Pampinea is left penniless and alone after her wealthy parents perish during an outbreak of plague. Seizing on this opportunity the evil Gerbino de la Ratta pressures her to marry him as an escape to financial ruin. The fate of the Princess now rests with a mysterious stranger, Lorenzo , a travelling rogue who swears to win her affection and overthrow his long-time nemesis, the brutal de la Ratta...

Virgin Territory is a pretty poor movie that tries to be too many things and ends up doing none of them very well. The biggest problem is that it doesn't really know what it wants to be. Is it a romantic period piece? An action/adventure? A Python-esque comedy? Soft porn? It tries to be all and fails in every respect.

This also seems to be something the marketing department has had problems with too. Just trawl the Internet and you'll find a number of different posters - mainly showing Christensen surrounded by beautiful women. Odd really when the movie's trailer focuses on princess Pampinea and her dilemma over which one of the three men in her life she will marry. And now this is released on DVD the sleeve that's being used implies that this is more of a medieval action adventure.

Even the double entendre title makes absolutely no sense when applied to the movie. And despite the poor-man's Terry Gilliam animation sequences (which aren't very funny unless you think flatulent angels and penises with wings are a hoot) and a couple of standalone scenes, this film takes itself a little too seriously. So when David Walliams makes a cameo appearance as Cart Pusher, it's the only standout funny moment but it feels so out of place. In fact, it's the only time (the animation doesn't count because, both times it's used, it's not clever or funny) that I thought this movie had promise, and that was because it really did feel like a Monty Python movie - if even for just a minute. So, it was great to hear Walliams echo this in the extras as he explains that the writer / director David Leland is a good friend of the Python's (particularly Terry Jones as he wrote the script for Personal Services - which Jones directed) and that if the film had been made 30 years ago he could imagine Eric Idol playing his part.

Leland has already proven himself to be a competent writer / director (he was responsible for Wish You Were Here [1987] and he wrote the screenplay for Mona Lisa [1986]) so what on earth happened here?

This film tries its best to show it's one thing, and then veers way off track and starts down another road. In the end all we are left with is a jumbled mess of half-baked ideas that don't gel together coherently. There's plenty of breasts thrown in to appease dirty old men and young lads who are too young to buy porn mags. I suppose that the numerous naked scenes were chucked in at the last minute to fill in time, or to distract any lowbrow male audience members from the fact that there is no real plot to the movie. In fact this film was so boring, and lacking in pace, that I fell asleep for 15 minutes and when I awoke the plot hadn't moved on at all.

The director does insist in hammering home everything. There's no subtlety here. Even Roth's: "You look like a big count" is spelled out so clearly that even the most stupid of viewer will understand this malapropism... eventually, after poor Roth has repeated it enough times until Leland is convinced it's sunk in. And just in case anyone is having problems with following the plot, a really annoying narrator keeps us up to date with what on earth is going on.

Of the main characters, I actually found myself rooting for Roth. He was by far the most well defined character. Christensen's part could have been played by a plank of wood, and Barton just has to look pretty... Nigel Planer (whose best work was as Neil in BBC's The Young Ones - everything since has been downhill) is underused and is a role that someone just starting out in the acting business would have thought twice about accepting.

As the film limps to its inevitable happily ever after conclusion, I defy anyone to keep their food down as the screen is, for some unfathomable reason, filled with scenes of various couples snogging. This onslaught of merciless face sucking is made all the more unwatchable as Planer is one of those playing tonsil hockey.

Extras include a Making of featurette (21 min, 44 sec behind the scenes footage which includes interviews with cast and crew); and the Trailer. All I can say is thank God I didn't have to sit through a director's audio commentary as well.

A total mess of a film that, given a proper focus, could have been a pretty good romantic period piece, action/adventure, Python-esque comedy or soft porn movie.

3

Darren Rea