This was my entertainment for the night, last night.
Ya know, this comes darn close to being a "1990: The Bronx Warriors" rip-off. When you are ripping of low budget Italian post-apocalyptic movies..you're in for trouble.
Andrew reviewed this one, and it can be found
hereWhat stunned me about this movie was that for such a low-budget and confusing mess, this came out at a time when most of the principles, especially John Stockwell ("Christinee", etc..) and James Earl Jones ("Star Wars", etc..), had done much more main stream work. How those two, plus Kim Cattrell ended up here has got to involve either comprimising photos or gambling debts.
Anyway, I agree with most of Andrew's review so I'll only add some details I picked out above and beyond his review
1) Never before have I seen so friendly a set of bikers gangs. I've seen more animosity at a Pee Wee football game then between these two sets of chums. These guys don't seem to be rival gangs so much as the fallout from a "less filling/tastes great" debate. Everyone knows everyone by first name on good speaking terms and they seem to genuinely care about each other and not want to see each other hurt. Ray seems genuinely disturbed when Bolo presents actual firearms to use against the Clippers
2) What was the plot again? OK, the basic premise is that a big coporation wants to come into a wasteland of a city being run by rival cub scout packs..er...biker gangs, and restore power and water and other services and basically make the place liveable and civilized. That's a GOOD THING! At least they start out by making a deal with the DAs, and offering one to the Clippers, and it's only because Mick seems to like being King of a pretty small Kingdom and won't go along with returning the city to the 20th century, that Sonya (Evil Corporation) starts to get rough. Granted they get really rough, slaughtering most of the gang and imprisoning the rest, but even before that's done it's assumed that Sonya's the bad guys, Ray is a traitor, and Mick and the Clippers are the innocent good guys. This seems to be taken in stride as 'what Evil Corporations do', but it can only be in context of knowing they are an evil coporation to begin with and nothing to that point indicates that. They actually seem to be fairly reasonable (other than homicidal nutcase, "Bolo", and his do-anything-to-get-the-job-done boss). Ray seems to be the most intelligent one of the whole lot and his throwing in with the 'bad guys' actaully made a lot of sense and Mick, "our hero" seems the unreasonable one.
There's a James Earl Jones voice over at the end that implies that the adults who died out in the apoc-plague are not to be trusted and the kids have taken over the city and that's a good thing, but that's a bit late to try to be establishing motive for the first 80 minutes of the movie (and doesn't really make a lot of sense)
Anyone remember the "Star Trak: TNG" episode where Data is trying to convince the colonists on a planet to leave because they're on a planet owned by someone else coming to colonize. The colonists want to stay and protect their home and fight off the aliens (with pitchforks). Data finally gets frustrated and whips out his laser and destroys some vital equipment, making the point that know matter how much the colonists want to stay and are willing to fight, they will be completely destroyed dur to the sheer manpower and technology gab. They can leave and live, or stay and die. Staying and fighting is simply a hopeless non-option. I kept expecting Ray (or Wickings or *somebody*) to have that convesation with Mick. Mick doesn't really seem to 'get it'
Anyway, ignoring some gaping non-sensibility in the plot, this is a fairly entertaining movie. Some decent action. The costumes are sure colorful, the airplanes are a lot of fun, and it's a good "just *what* were you doing in 1985?" question to contemplate for a few name actors
