!!!!! MILD SPOILERS !!!!! In my review of AT THE EARTH'S core I said that the best of these Doug McClure gets attacked by rubber monsters in a 1970s British movie was THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT . If this holds true - And it's been years since I saw that movie - then WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS is certainly the second best in the genre Written by former DOCTOR WHO script writer Brian Hayles the story has some imagination even though no one is going to confuse it with a documentary . An eclectic ship's crew is abducted by a giant octopus and taken to the ancient city of Atlantis which is ruled by an alien civilisation which is engaged in a war of attrition against giant rubber monsters . One of the abductees Professor Aitken is wanted by the aliens for his superior intellect while the others will be used as slaves . It also turns out the abductees must be converted into gill breathers within a few days if they are to survive their new environment . Naturally upon hearing this the ships crew don't want to stay in their new home An entertaining enough story and unlike AT THE EARTHS CORE the production values are fairly good since location filming involving oceans and caves are used . There is the old bug bear of actors standing in front of obvious back projection trying to look scared at a rubber glove pocket but that's not enough to ruin the movie , in fact that adds some charm and the script has the temerity to point out that mankind's greatest achievements have come out of fighting one another in terrible wars . There are one or two plot holes like why do the aliens consider Professor Aitken a man of superior intellect since he would have no understanding of space travel or Einstiens theory of relativity , in other words he's a cave man compared to the aliens . You also can't help but notice that when the characters escape Atlantis Delphine the female lead has been rather superfluous to the plot But these minor flaws are never enough to totally ruin the movie for a discerning audience and I have noticed how many comments on this page centre around " I saw this when I was a kid and I'd love to see it again so please bring it out on DVD " It's probably nowhere as good as you remember it from 20 years ago but it still remains a fairly entertaining movie

Some blokes arrive in the sunken land of Atlantis, partly by accident, partly by design, and encounter despots and monsters. Shenanigans ensue.

Coming out of the spasm of activity whereby Doug McClure was the action-man protagonist in a number of similar British fantasy movies, this is not vastly different to the others. An adequate plot serves as a satisfactory row of hooks on which to hang a series of action sequences involving "special effects" of a type which was all we had at the time. And like the other films, the monsters are men in monster costumes, filmed in slow motion on miniature sets, which was a bit lame even then. There is one bit where a monster eats someone, and it is quite clear the considerable effort everyone has to go to in order to get out of the way and almost help the fellow into the monster's jaws. Nitrogen narcosis doesn't exist in journeying to and from this undersea realm, and octopuses have menacing roars. That sort of thing.

For all that, it is good natured and barrels along amiably enough. And Cyd Charisse, aged 57, shows that she still has a pretty good pair of pins.