Euro-adventure fans will find plenty to enjoy here.ДЄlan Steel (Sergio Ciani) - an Italian Peplum star who also starred in Maciste e la regina di Samar (1964) Alan Steel gets to show off his prowess and Rosalba Neri and Piero Lulli are always a pleasure to watch. The storyline is hardly original, but well written with plenty of chances for action and a storyline that although simple, keeps the film moving. The gorgeous Rosalba Neri gives a typically fine performance as Rosita while regular Spaghetti Western villain Piero Lulli is as good as ever as Rodrigo Sanchez. He certainly looks good in the action roles and although hardly likely to win any awards for acting he is much less wooden than many of the imported genre stars. The titual role is played by musclebound Alan Steel, actually Sergio Ciani, one of the few Italians to star in the Peplum boom. The setting is sometimes rather unclear, with the Carribean looking coasts contrasting against very European forests, but this is nothing that genre fans are not used to. The opening battle scenes are culled (quite neatly) from another picture and sadly this film is never able to match that scale, but it never tries to overstretch itself and we get a number of well helmed small scale action scenes with some very impressive stunt work. Fortunately the pacing is generally strong and although unoriginal the storyline works in enough plot and action scenes to keep it enjoyable.Дirector Luigi Capuano was no stranger to the age of sail, having worked on several pirate films and the film is handled in an adequate if rather uninspired way. Similarly grating are the script's numerous critiques of the class system of the era - an interesting point but never really developed, instead just mentioned endlessly. Less humourous are the film's comic relief characters, in this case a husband cuckolded by his wife, which quickly become very tiresome but are mercifully brief. The presence of Hercules (or Samson in the original Italian) in the 16th Century is never explained and it does often become unintentionally humourous, almost as much as the Black Pirate's ludicrous and almost self-parodic plan to kill Hercules slowly by flooding him in the bowels of the ship (leading not unpredictably to the ship starting to sink and Hercules having plenty of time to effect an escape). Writers Arpad DeRiso and Piero Pierotti were regular Peplum contributors and the script for Hercules and the Black Pirates is nothing more than a Peplum in disguise with all of the usual genre clichГ©s. Meanwhile, Rodrigo Sanchez, the assistant to the Governor is in league with the surviving Black Pirate and plots to work with him to capture the colony's gold. The Governor's daughter Rosita (Rosalba Neri) confesses her love for the strong man, but he is not of noble birth and their love cannot be approved. The soldiers of a Spanish colony celebrate the defeat of the notorious Black Pirate's fleet and hail Hercules (Alan Steel) as their champion. Alan Steel and Rosalba Neri star in an age of sail euro-adventure film.

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