If you're a fan of silly Aussie TV series Danger 5 then there's a good chance that you'll also enjoy this earlier effort from director Dario Russo. It's more silly than surreal, but it does a great job of parodying its chosen genre: the pulpy '60s/'70s foreign action adventures that gave their own unauthorised spin on popular American superheroes.
The basic plot goes something like this: Italian Spiderman (David Ashby) is a macho crime-fighter who loves his women, his macchiato coffee, and his cigarettes. He leaps into action after master criminal Captain Maximum breaks into the lab of Professor Bernardi and steals an asteroid that possesses the power to replicate living creatures, including humans.
Russo captures the look and feel of the era brilliantly, with grainy, saturated photography, wild editing, cheesy action, hot babes, bad special effects, and a groovy soundtrack. The fun includes a thoroughly unconvincing motorbike chase scene, a surf challenge between Spiderman and Captain Maximum that involves bikini babes and penguins, a cool psychedelic sequence, and a brutal showdown in a quarry that sees our hero single handedly taking on Maximum's henchmen before blowing the main bad guy sky high. Just like the real thing, the whole affair is blessed with an irresistible lack of logic.
7/10, plus a bonus point for Professor Bernardi's sexy daughter Jessica and his tasty lab assistant Judy. Minus one point, however, for the irritating 'shocked' character who wobbles his head from side to side. So that's 7/10 then!
