The Four

I don't begrudge Michael Ninn his success and Adult Industry fame a decade or two ago, but all his more recent work has been awful. "The Four", a dumb rip-off of the hit mainstream movie "300", is very badly made, with Ninn's attempts at stylization all falling flat. It was marketed by Adam & Eve as one of their 4-DVD "prestige" follow-ups to the hit "Pirates" they made with Digital Playground, but offers nothing of interest to the viewer.

Basically Ninn spotlights five (counting Jana Jordan) of his contract actresses, mainly posing and adding nothing to their careers. He has adapted the innovative visual approach of "300", with its fake green- screen and animated backdrops plus slow-motion gore and blood-spilling to a porno format, not a bright idea.

Most of the show, which runs 200 minutes over the course of 2 DVDs (the other two devoted to filler BTS and interview junk), is presented in Blurrovision, a term I use for filmmakers who degrade the visual quality beyond soft-focus to an eye-straining mess. Some of the lengthy sex scenes, particularly on Disk 2, are thankfully shown in sharper, less adulterated form but none of the sex is interesting -strictly mechanical. Ninn's starlets, including lead Brea Bennett, are pretty but don't hold a candle to the Tier 1 superstars active circa 2011 when this was shot.

Marco Banderas is physically impressive as the bare-chested villain Xerxes, who killed off those pesky 300 Spartans in the first movie. Our four heroines, whose husbands and friends were killed in that earlier battle to visit Ephor who grants them each the power of 300 warriors, a rather flimsy premise for the movie, enabling them to seek revenge by doing battle with Xerxes' numerous Persian soldiers and guards.

A droning narration attempts pretentiously to add significance to the non-story, that consists of poorly done SPFX and blood/gore moments as random footage of sword fights and other mayhem is inserted (and repeated just as randomly) between the requisite XXX scenes. The nonsense makes no sense, particularly when I recognized the distinctive porn stud of this era, Reno, looking impressive as a warrior with a shield, who turns out to be the dead King Leonidas's son who will take over after events depicted. Charles Dera with beard is good casting as Leonidas, but the script credited to Sherry Ziegelmeyer is hopelessly confusing, as we see Reno humping one of the four during a desert journey mid-way through the film, and then witness his conception later when Dera or his spirit somehow mates with Nikki Kane as Plataea, the designated survivor of the 4 who is to return home and tell the tale, as well as continue the royal tradition.

Most disturbing fact is that this project evidently was expensive and took quite a bit of work, much of it to ruin perfectly acceptable original footage. The hubris of substituting maximum artificiality for the good, old naturalism of porn at its best is idiotic. A one or two- day quickie, without special effects and the like would be much more entertaining, easy to watch and avoid the pitfall of trying to win meaningless awards from easily-impressed or corrupt Industry types. Ninn would be better off making movies for the fans' enjoyment, not to satisfy his own navel gazing.