2020 Texas Gladiators

Release

2020 Texas Gladiators was passed by Italian censors in 1984. The film has been released under several titles, including Anno 2028: I Gladiatori del Futuro (lit. Year 2020 Gladiators of the Future), Futoro, 2020: Freedom Fighters, 2020: The Rangers of Texas and Sudden Death. The film was released on VHS in 1985 by Media Home Entertainment.

Reception

In his book Horror and Science Fiction Film IV, Donald C Willis described the film as an "undistinguished actioner" that had a "long wait for the climactic novelty of a battle waged with bows and arrows, cycles, shields, rifles, machine guns, and hatchets" Donald Guarisco (AllMovie) noted how the film did not "follow the usual formula of ripping off The Road Warrior or Escape From New York (though it does take some visual cues from those sources)." but was closer to a spaghetti western that was "updated with some futuristic gadgetry." The review referred to the story telling as "fairly brain-dead", noting that first half of the film is hard to follow as it moved from scene to scene with no transitions or any connecting scenes to explain a passage of time. The review commented on the characters as "cardbaord" and the dialogue as "often hilarious" noting that "there is some type of action every few minutes in this flick. The end result is daft but never dull and that duality makes Anno 2020 - I Gladiatori Del Futuro good late-night fodder for fans of trashy b-movies." TV Guide referred to the film as "an inept action picture" that was derivative of the "infinitely superior "Mad Max" series" and that "One can go on and on pointing out the innumerable problems of the film or that the director must be morally spent, but the fact will remain that 2020 Texas Gladiators is nothing but more egesta from the Italian exploitation factory."