Treasure of the Four Crowns (1983)

J.T. Striker (Tony Anthony) is an adventurer / fortune hunter hired by his associates Edmond (Gene Quintano) and Professor Montgomery (Francisco Villena) to get his hands on the legendary Four Crowns, which when obtained can make a person all powerful. This he has to do because diabolical religious cult leader Brother Jonas (Emiliano Redondo) is using them to control his mindless flock. To accomplish his task, J.T. gathers together a bunch of his old friends: the weary old Socrates (Francisco Rabal), the drunken Rick (Jerry Lazarus), and the super sexy Liz (Ana Obregon).You know you're in trouble when the opening "Star Wars" style crawl is sorely lacking in any sort of punctuation. This basically amiable movie, rushed into production in order to cash in on the success of the previous Cannon Group 3-D feature, "Comin' at Ya!", is entertaining in spurts. Its extreme crudeness and cheesiness (one can clearly see the strings that are manipulating objects) could have been forgiven if only the movie had more energy. It moves along much too slowly, and there's overkill in terms of exposition. The acting from most of the cast is pretty bland. The filmmakers thrust as many objects into the camera as they can.Helping to uplift "Treasure of the Four Crowns" (starting with that title, it's all too obvious which hit movie was a big influence on this one) to a degree are its WTF moments, its admittedly amusing opening set piece that goes on for over 20 minutes without dialogue, its absolutely priceless climax, and a wonderful, stirring Ennio Morricone music score that truly deserved a better movie.This just isn't as much fun as this viewer would have liked.Five out of 10.

This movie was horrible and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves for ever having been associated with it. Having said that, there were a few aspects of this movie that appealed to me, namely that there was a history behind the crowns. I saw this a few years ago, so some of my details may be a little off, but you'll get the idea of just how horrible this movie is.The movie opens with J.T. Striker (Tony Anthony) approaching some old castle. We quickly learn that this castle is booby-trapped to the max and our hero has to dodge everything from darts and flying buzzards to ancient torture racks to reach his goal, which is the coffin of some long-dead king. Inside this coffin is his goal: a key. He collects the key and then escapes, as the entire castle starts to "come to life" and eventually explodes. Just where this explosion came from is a mystery.Back to the world goes our hero to meet up with Ed, who takes him to a museum where they hand over the key to Prof. Montgomery. Montgomery and Ed tell the story of the crowns, which they key will unlock. They actually have one of the crowns in their possession. I found this to be the best part of the movie and the only true attempt at meaningful dialog.Ed speaking, as the crown slides out of its container: "This is one of the Four Golden Crowns created by the Visigoths in the 6th Century some time after the conquest of Spain." Prof. Montgomery: "Legend held that the gold balls on top three of the four crowns contained secrets to unleashing incredible powers of good and evil. After a time they passed into the fabric of myth and legend." Ed: Until sometime in the late 1800's when they were discovered (somewhere in Spain).Prof. Montgomery: "But when the Arabs invaded Spain three of the four crowns disappeared. The fourth fell into the Arabs' hands and attempting to unlock its secrets without the key, they destroyed the gold ball. Three years ago I learned the location of the key, but saw no sense in retrieving it since the other crowns were missing until this crown, reportedly the one containing the scroll surfaced. I found it in the possession of a Sherpa mountain climber in Nepal and convinced him to sell it to me. And now, we shall see." The professor opens the crown and there is the scroll and now the enlist Striker to help them steal the remaining two crowns from a cult leader who uses them to control people (we are never told just how the crowns help him do this). Striker reluctantly agrees and assembles the team of Rick The Drunk, the dying old clown Socrates and his daughter Liz, and Ed.The hapless crew infiltrates the secure room where the crowns are kept and are very close to getting them without incident, but then a piece of equipment that is supposed to knock out the security systems, fails to function and J.T. decides to go for it anyway. What follows is a comical collection of deaths by each of the participants (except Liz and J.T.). First, Socrates has a heart attack (we were told earlier he had a heart condition). Rick is killed by arrows that shoot up from the floor. Ed is at first crushed by the arms of this statue that the crowns are sitting on and then a snake comes out of the statue and bites him on the cheek (leaving no fang marks). Before the entire ridiculousness of this scene can even be comprehended, J.T. who has been blinded by some steam that shot out of the statue (and set off the alarms), regains his feet and opens the crowns (I guess all of the security mechanisms had been exhausted at this point). The crowns (the green one evil, the gold one good) make breathing noises at him. He takes them in his hands and his head spins around a la The Exorcist and then his face is divided between good and evil, with the evil side corresponding to the hand he is holding the green ball in and the good corresponding with the had he is holding the gold ball in.Brother Jonas, the cult leader, has by this time burst into the room with his machine-gun toting, mask wearing followers and J.T. shoots fire out of the two crowns and kills them all. He snaps back out of it after they are all dead and he and Liz are lifted out of the room by the professor, but not before he throws the crowns into the fire.There is a final scene which makes no sense. We see this blob rise out of a swamp and snake-like thing shoots out. But I want to point out that there were THREE crowns shown in this movie. People seemed to forget about the one with the scroll.O.K., that's basically the movie. The 3D was horrible. Strings are visible everywhere, much of the 3D was wasted on things that didn't need it, and nothing was really explained about how the crowns could help mankind, even though this why they were all risking their lives for them.None of the characters were complicated or compelling. There was nothing that made you root for these guys to win. And the director seemed to just do whatever he wanted without thoughts to continuity or credibility. A shining example of this would be the fact that Striker escapes from the castle in the beginning by breaking through a stain-glass window that leads right outside. Why didn't he just go through that window in the first place instead of risking his life maneuvering through the booby-trapped castle? Hope this saves you a few bucks.

Treasure of the Four Crown in 3-D is the heartwarming story of a man suffering from impotency (Tony Anthony) who races through Southern California with the government closing in. A hypnotist (Ana Obregon) reluctantly helps in the daring plot. Gene Quintano disturbs in the role of fetishist "Edmond". While the performances are rather uneven overall, you won't forget Kate Levan in her breakout role as "Possessed Woman".The film though cannot be fully appreciated unless viewed in 3-D. Only then do the strings attached to the "floating key" and the fact that there's only two crowns shown in the movie (though a third is briefly mentioned) truly jump out a come alive for the viewer.

This movie is absolutely awful. As a kid of 8 years old, I saw this at the movies with my brother. I remember being bored during it then, but the idea of fantastic powers from crowns appealed to me.I recently found it on Ebay and was excited to get it. Now, I look back on this movie as just trying to make a buck off of Raiders of the Lost Ark with the additional gimmick of 3D.There is not character development. There isn't any point as to why the 3D effects have to happen. You can see all the strings used for the fireballs, darts, and the flying key.I can just imagine the "creative team" thinking this movie up. "If one rolling ball was good for Indy, why not create 2 or 3 flaming rolling balls coming at the lead character."This movie isn't even bad funny. To quote comic book guy, "worst movie ever."