Last of the Warriors
THE STORY: This movie started out kind of good....well, not good good, but good for a b-movie good...but soon lost its steam.
Its after the apocalypse...I don't know how long after, but long enough for states to be renamed things like "New Idaho". We don't find out exactly what caused the world to end until much later in the movie. Anyway, a group of people are discussing whether or not they should resist the raiders (evil biker-like bad guys) or just run for it when suddenly the raiders show up and start killing everyone. Harris, a young man, wants to stay and fight beside his girlfriend, Claudia, but his mother insists that they go on the lam. Being an obedient boy, Harris and his mom quickly exit stage left while their friends are being mowed down by the bad guys. Claudia and her father are captured. The dad gets killed in captivity, but Claudia is locked up. Lucas plans on forcing her to mate with his really really really old father, "The Great Shepherd." This guy never speaks, he just sits there looking senile.
The Raiders, by the way all dress in black leather biker outfits and are led by a woman called Valkia and she in turn follows the orders of Lucas, a guy that dresses like a monk and he in turn follows "The Great Shepherd".
Harris and his mom are nearly captured a day or so later. The mom gets killed but Harris is saved by a woman named Danielle. They travel back to New Idaho together, get attacked by mutants and finally make it to Danielle's base. She's in cahoots with Iodine and Chuck, two former soldiers that now supply arms to the regular folks to stave off the raiders. There's also two blondes that do nothing but get naked for the viewer's amusement, some raider guy they keep imprisoned and a really annoying computer that talks. Iodine takes Harris into the woods and shows him a helicopter he has out there. That's when we learn that a plague has wiped out civilization via dialogue between Harris and Iodine. While those two are away the raiders attack the base and capture Danielle and Chuck. Valkia tortures Danielle. The next day the raider guy that Chuck had as a prisoner is ready to execute them by firing squad. Apparently its a ruse though...He's on Chuck's side and fires on the assembled raiders! Chuck and Danielle flee behind some rocks where there's a cache of weapons. (I guess the raider-guy left them there for them) A giant fire-fight ensues and out of the blue here comes Harris and Iodine in the chopper. The heroes of course kill about a gazillion guys and never get hit once. Harris and Danielle break into the compound of the raiders. Danielle destroys Valkia with a grenade and Harris finds Claudia and kills Lucas. The end.
I'm only guessing but I think this movie was made by someone with a lot of biker buddies. The acting was really bad, especially Danielle and Valkia. They sounded like they were reading from cue-cards. The only person I recognized as being in other films was Lucas, played by William Smith. (no, not the rapper dude!) The plot is hard to follow, such as it is. How come the raider-guy was on Chuck's side? What is the Great Shepherd all about? Why do people follow him? How'd Iodine and Harris know where to find Danielle and Chuck? I dunno. As I said, this movie started off with a cliched and tired type story, but soon turned into a crazy shoot 'em up with bikers, rock music and bad acting. Lots of explosions though.
Best Lines: "You lost to two women and a boy!?"- Valkia is enraged that her men lost when they tried to capture Harris and his mother. Hell, Valkia's a woman...why is she so suprised?
"Never take yer hands off yer [unwrite]in' weapon!"- Ozzie, a raider to one of his cronies. He was right, too... as soon as this guy laid his rifle down, Danielle pops out and blows him away.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:
1.) Arco, a raider is imprisoned and tortured by Valkia for saying "sez who". she told him Claudia was not for him when she was first captured. Boy, that is strict. all he said was "Sez Who" and he immediately changed his tune when Lucas spoke up. Valkia had him killed for it! I'd quit that army!
2.) Y'know how Valkia killed Arco? she dropped him in a pit with a rather friendly looking dog. Now I guess we're to assume the dog tore him to bits, but it wasn't a particularly tough looking dog. It was a Labrador or something! I think I could have killed that dog! Arco's a tough after-the-apocalypse warrior!
3.) Ozzie was a complete idiot. He gets wounded when Danielle saves Harris, but when he sneaks up on her he says "Good Night bitch" without raising his weapon or anything. She just turned around and blew his balls off.
4.) Ooookay...the talking computer is turning me off. It reminds me too much of the talking computer bike in "Warrior of the Lost world". (MST3K fans will know what I mean.) Dammit, which one of you guys told the movie industry that annoying computers that talk and have Atari-class graphics were cool?
5.) What the hell was the cannibal mutant scene for? It was too long and it was stupid. The mutants chase Harris and Danielle in their car. I kept wondering why Danielle and Harris didn't just stop, get out of their car and shoot the unarmed mutants!
6.) What the hell is going on? Lucas has women imprisoned in some kind of stasis tubes? did we suddenly switch to Star Trek or better yet, Thundarr the Barbarian?* Where'd this technology come from?
NUDITY AND SEX: I think Claudia is the only woman that doesn't show her boobs in this movie. the two blondes with Chuck and Iodine show theirs a lot.
HUH?: You know, there's After-the-apocalypse films and then there's movies that are just, well, goofy. Take the movie 'The Postman" with Kevin Costner. In that movie at least you get the idea that food, ammunition and necessities are not to be squandered. Hey, its after the apocalypse! Who's gonna make all of this stuff? In the "Postman" movie the bad guys forced the regular peace keeping folk to supply them by use of force. In this movie I had to wonder why aren't the raiders doing the same? How're they eating? Who's farming? Kinda hard to keep an after-the-apocalypse army together if no one is eating! Where're they getting the fuel for the vehicles? Who's making all of the bullets? These guys waste a lot of ammo.
I'm willing to admit I may have missed some key point in this movie...Lucas was hard to understand and the others were so badly acted sometimes my mind wandered. But apparantly Claudia's dad knew Chuck and Iodine, and Danielle knew Valkia. For some reason the captured raider was on Chuck's side but I don't recall any dialogue saying why. As I said I may have missed something but I think its just the fault of the scriptwriter.
How could Harris miss the mutants chasing him on foot? they're ten feet away and he has an automatic weapon. A MOVIE AUTOMATIC WEAPON, meaning it never runs out of ammo! The mutants just duck! Harris is a lousy shot! Near the end of the movie he fires a pistol at Lucas from about six or seven feet away in a narrow passageway and misses!
Danielle was tortured by Valkia with a red hot poker! But the next day before the firing squad she's not singed, scarred or hurt in any way. Is this the gathering? Is she an immortal?**
How the [unwrite] did Iodine and Harris know where to find Chuck and Danielle after they were captured.?
THE TALLY: Despite the glaring holes in this movie it was fun to watch until the mutant chasing scene. It got kind of slow then. The 'comedy' relief scene with Iodine playing strip poker with the 2 blondes was kind of grating, too. Because it had lots of explosions and was generally filled with action I'd give it 4 devils, but since it had that reprehensible computer and the two scenes mentioned above I'm taking 2 back. This movie shall be whisked away to the circle of the inferno inhabited by movies with stupid computers and nudity that had no impact!
*"Thundarr the barbarian" was a saturday morning cartoon in the early eighties about, well, a barbarian in an after-the-apocalypse world, but one where there was magic and mad scientists with advanced technology.
** Yet another remark about "Highlander: The Series".