No, this isn’t a typo. And it’s not that kind of pun.
And yes, this poster is 100 % legit.
Since it’s my birthday, let’s review a movie i’ve been meaning to cover here for a while.
This is an actual italian parody/spoof of Avatar, that released in italian theathers, for actual money, with the intent of launching a new brand of “cinepattone” (aka a type of italian extremely low brow dumb comedies that once infested theathers every year around christmas), the “spaghetti-fi”, in the words of Anatar’s producer Salvatore Scarico, whom also literally and openly calls this an Avatar’s mockbuster film.
So much for clarity.
Reeling back my jaw from the freezing pavement after realizing this isn’t a troll style marketing campaign for another, real movie…. i must also point out this was never really properly advertised anywhere (or almost anywhere) and i stumbled upon its existence last year while browsing upcoming early dicember cinema releases here.
While this also gives me whiffs of Creators: The Past (a huge italian scifi epic that flopped back into the obscurity from whence it came)… you know, at least they marketed it at popular Italian anime/manga/videogames cons that year, Lucca Comics & Games. They tried proper. And at least that movie had William Shatner.
Here they were so spineless that at the last second (literally, 2 days before the intended 1st December release, hence 2 weeks before Avatar: The Way Of Water opened in theathers here) they chickened out – ha ha – and rescheduled the release between January and February 2023.
Carnosaur had the balls to release days before Jurassic Park. Cowards, pitiful cowards.
Then again, why bother marketing something like this, the kind of product you know it’s never gonna make even his meager budget back, as it seems to arrive 15 years later…..not even after the first Avatar movie, but the last gasps of the dying “spoof movie” genre as well, and any potential paying public with it. Sounds like a good idea already, but let’s proceed.
To be honest i’m not even sure it even released in theathers AT ALL, all i could find to back up the idea it did release in theathers here is the official Facebook page for the movie and a post in late January saying the movie released in the UCI theather chain…i regularly go to one of the theathers were it was supposedly gonna screen, when i don’t i still check the listings weekly, and it never showed up once, despite the post claiming it was (also) released there on January 19th 2023.
I know because i’ve been following this movie’s mess of a release so i would have noticed if it did release… unless it did for a single day, maybe 3 and then it got pulled. Wouldn’t be the first time it happened, i highly doubt this is the case because i remember listings that were up for a single day being snuffed the very next day, but there’s a chance i simply didn’t see it, so apparently the movie did came out in cinemas, even if it feels like i’m being gaslit into believing it happened….
Regardless, somewhere between february and late march (the 23th March, if another post of that official Facebook page can be trusted) it was up on Amazon Prime Video, included with the normal Prime subscription, so thanks for saving me that 7 bucks.
Not that it would have mattered because if a respected italian cinema site is to be believed, it raked in less than 4000 euro… over a budget of 400.000. Yikes.
The movie itself it’s also the obvious kind of lazy parody you’d think it is, swapping the humans with humanoid multiples of Howard The Duck and the blue anime smurfs with “primitive” humans, just in this case the “Duckenoids” are in search of a new home planet after their own collapsed.
The princess of the duckmen wants to try and coexist with the inhabitants of the planet instead of just exterminating them all and taking Earth (no, wait, Pandoro) for themselves, she transform for this reason, then crashlands and is helped by a loner man of reason and inventor, shunned by his savage little burg. To further discuss the plot isn’t worth it, and i use the term “plot” loosely.
So, instead, let’s get to the point: is Anatar ANY good?
You know, i’m kinda impressed by how shockingly ATROCIOUS it is, like, you expect terrible but to actually watch it all the way through it’s utterly masochistic, so profoundly unfunny and embarassing that will make most people absolutely speechless, because it does try. And fails.
This isn’t so bad it’s good, this is so bad that will provide enough ice to re-freeze Lucifer in place if need be. I’d like to say that at least the costumes aren’t THAT bad despite making it obvious this is a low budget affair… and they aren’t, but i’m not sure them being a step above a Wood Rocket porn parody qualifies as a “positive”, not for a thing you allegedly put in theathers.
So bad to the point i’m forced to hope at least some of the actors had fun on set, just to try and squeeze some positives. I’d honestly be less imbarassed if i was know for starring in Monsturd as the titular creature, because this – again – does commit to its stupid idea… and fails badly.
Even more since the cast isn’t actually that bad (there’s some actors that also were in high profile releases like Matteo Garrone’s 2019 Pinocchio movie), it’s just the subject matter being so mind numblingly stupid and not even accidentally funny it’s almost unbelievable, so i commend the cast for clearly trying their damnest to make what should only have been a mock-up poster.
You’d hope it would eventually get around to being fun again due to its sheer awfulness, but nope, it just burrow deeper into shocking the audience to Mukodon standards.
So bad you end up cheering for the villains, because yes, this farcical medieval cavemen (yes, i guess because this is technically an italian exploitation movie, it “had” to also be kinda a caveman film) humanity isn’t worth watching in action, let alone saving it, so just drop an “egg nuke” and spare us shit like this, that can’t even be arsed to keep up the pretense in terms of runtime.
It’s just 82 minutes long, but we’re talking about those kind of “minutes” that stretch into hours, ages, eras, aeons as you try not to shut the thing off immediatly. 82 minutes as in 78 of actual movie, plus credits, we really can’t be spared of any desperate trick.
This is the kinda of shit were i would not blame anyone for walking out after 20 minutes. Or less.
At least the scenes with the duck people are more tolerable than those with the humans on Earth, only because of the slapstick being marginally worse in the latter ones, but fret not, there’s no need to fight, they’re all so braindead and uncapable of evoking even a desperate chuckle.
To say nothing of how unbelievably dated everything in it feels, for better or worse (mostly worse, let’s be real) this movie was gonna have the same exact type of “humour” and jokes even if it was made 20 years ago, so stale it feels… until the final act where they go for abysmal fourth wall breaking attempts at humour in the final act, those date the movie in a different way.
I could say more, but honestly this movie doesn’t even deserve these much words spent shitting on it, because i can’t do nothing to this sad thing that the people involved already didn’t, and it’s ever oh so every telling that the director decided to instead get non-credited as Alan Smithee.
I will say this though: if nothing else, Anatar it’s an awkward, uncertain, spineless and pointless attempt that seals the nail on the coffin of the italian parody movie it wanted to resurrect or carry on the will for.
Good fuckin riddance.
Wise Cafe (International) 