Here at Comics-x-aminer we are starting a new tradition, in similar vain of Mystery Science Theater’s turkey day, we are doing Turkey Week. What is Turkey Week, well it’s where we so you the viewer a whole week of movies from the country of Turkey, but not just any movies, rip-off movies. You see, in the late seventies and early eighties the Turkish film association decided to ban western films from coming into the country and instead, make their own versions of that American film. So, consider these movies an A-budget version of a sweded film or in better terms, a c-budget film compared to the American classic.

Turkey Week #3: The Three Strong Men aka Turkish Captain America vs. Turkish Spider-Man

By Cory Robinson

For our third helping of Turkey we, we here at Comics-x-aminer decided to go with another superhero film because you know, we are a superhero site so we kind of have to deal with that genre, but whoo boy do we have a doozy for you today. Now, it’s my understanding that a lot of people were upset that Spider-Man wasn’t in The Avengers movie filmed somewhat recently. The reason being is because Marvel doesn’t own the film rights to Spider-Man now, but this Turkish film will fill that void, or make you wish that you never thought of having Spider-Man in The Avengers to begin with.

The film we are looking at today is called The Three Strong Men where Captain America and El Santo, who is better known as a real Mexican luchador wrestler, fight Spider-Man. Now, you might be thinking that the plot of the movie is just some big misunderstanding in which Captain America and Spider-Man make each other very mad because of some stupid argument and then fight each other for half the movie, then makeup and fight the real enemy of the film, well you would be wrong.

In this movie Spider-Man is a gangster who wears the same costume, but is now a counterfeit smuggler along with his “Spider-Gang”. Not only does he smuggle illegal currency, but he murders many people in this film, most of the time naked and in the shower, because…. I don’t know, maybe Spider-Man saw Psycho one too many times. If you still don’t believe me, then just watch the first minute of the film, included in the link below, in which he takes a boat propeller and shoves a woman’s face into it. Now do you believe me.

Spider-Man doesn’t really have any powers in this film, other having huge eyebrows poking through his mask, making makeshift tee-pees in which he then stabs people, stealing statues for no reason, and having his own spider-car in which in all honesty is just a blue oldsmobile. The only power, if it even is a power, is near the end of the movie there is a plot point left open to which Captain America kills Spider-Man multiple times, but then just reappears again in a different place, it’s up to the viewer to decide whether he can clone multiple bodies of himself, or if he has ten henchmen running around with the same spider costume on.

Speaking of costumes, the Captain America costume looks halfway decent other than that he doesn’t have a shield, no wing ears, or that the actor doesn’t look American. The Spider-Man costume on the other hand, looks awful. It looks like they bought the actor a pair of bright-blue corduroys, made him a red shirt, and put a red ski mask on him complete with two giant holes for the eyes, probably to make sure that his two eyebrows could get enough oxygen. But, I will give him credit for actually having the spider symbols on the front and back of the costumes.

I would definitely say to give this film a watch, the plot is completely stupid and it does no justice to the comic characters or El Santo himself. The movie shows Captain American and El Santo without their masks for most of film, even though in real-life El Santo made sure to never have his mask off in public because in Mexican Wrestling, if you remove your mask you are forced to retire and to never wrestle again, so good job there Turkish film crew. Seriously, how can you screw up comic book characters this much there are literally no traits from the comics put into this film, did the filmmakers even bother researching the material in this case?

Any who, if you thought Turkish Superman was messed up, then you are in for a treat. You can watch the film below, though it doesn’t contain subtitles something tells me if it did, the film would be a hell of a lot harder to get through. So, enjoy!

Feel free to come back for part 4 tomorrow, 11/24/13

Like this: Like Loading...