Tag: post-apocalypse

Cherry 2000

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★★★
“In the future, we’ll have sex robots and 3-wheel cars. But toaster ovens will be in short supply.”

Though I hope 80’s hair never makes the comeback shown here, this SF actioner has some nice ideas about the future, amid jabs at human relationships. Sam (Andrews) has opted for synthetic love, in the form of the titular android, largely because dating has become more like a business merger, complete with contracts – a pre-Matrix Larry Fishburne plays a lawyer specialising in sex. When his Cherry breaks down, the only replacement is out in the post-apocalyptic wastes, and he hires the feisty Johnson (Griffith) to keep his ass out of trouble and get him there. On the way, they meet the delightfully evil Lester (Thomerson) and his posse, and there’s an impressive, if illogical, sequence involving a crane, Really Big Explosions, and Really Dumb Villains.

I really wanted to love this: three years later, De Jarnatt directed Miracle Mile, an all-time favourite, and probably the best obscure film ever. Of course, we all know that Sam is eventually going to discover that flesh and blood beats circuitry any day, and the makers know that we know, so don’t make much effort at building the relationship. Brion James turns up briefly, though they missed the chance to have the former replicant (Blade Runner) turn android hunter. I think it’s all probably tongue in cheek, and as such is largely criticism-proof, but a lot of it comes over as bland (Thomerson and his crew of barbecuing yuppies excepted) and it’s hard to relate to a hero basically after a hi-tech puncture repair kit for his rubber doll. More sex, violence and general bad ‘tude could have made it a classic.

Dir: Steve De Jarnatt
Star: David Andrews, Melanie Griffith, Tim Thomerson, Ben Johnson

Nemesis 4

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★★★
“Bizarre, ultra-cheap, post-apocalypse fetish film for body-building fans.”

Though the lead actress, body-builder Sue Price, looks nothing like the cover pic (right), credit is due for choosing someone who defies conventional standards of female beauty. However, take all the points away, and then some, for pretending she does; having her spend half the film naked is something both Chris and I could very easily have lived without. She is, frankly, scary. That’s a shame, as while the budget here was obviously tiny, it’s put (mostly) to good use, with an interesting script.

The year is 2080, and Alex (Price) is a cyborg assassin on the verge of burn-out. When she kills the son of a mob boss on her final mission, she becomes the target – knowing escape is futile, she waits, tormented by visions of the Angel of Death. It’s all very talky, but is brisk enough to keep you occupied, and the location (my guess is somewhere in Slovakia) is great, a bombed-out, deserted city that’s very eerie. Also impressive is the freaky cyborg-sex, all orifices and mechanical devices, as if David Cronenberg was assistant director.

However, there’s no justification for Alex taking her clothes off every five minutes, except perhaps the nasty spikes that come out of her chest, which is slim excuse indeed. There’s also the lamest helicopter explosion I’ve seen, and huge amounts of irrelevant footage from (presumably) Nemesis 3, to get the running time up to 80 minutes. Still, this could have been a small gem, if only Price had stayed dressed – the cheapness often works for it. Just expect no action extravaganza, more a philosophical rumination on life and death. Albeit with lumpy breasts.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star:

Sue Price, Blanka Copikova, Andrew Divoff, Michal Gucík

Barb Wire

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barb1★★★★
“Play it again, Pam…”

When I picked up this DVD, I could hear Chris rolling her eyes at me. And during the first five minutes of the movie – which consists of virtually nothing but Pam on a swing, getting sprayed with a fire-hose, silicone on display – this eye-rolling escalated to the point where I swear I could hear them whirring like the reels on a slot-machine. But by the end, even she had to admit that being a titty-fest – and there’s hardly a scene here without cleavage – doesn’t necessarily make this a bad movie…

For this is nowhere near as bad as its Gigli-like reputation would have you believe. Okay, for $18m, you might expect a bit more than a post-Mad Max setting, and you would certainly expect more from your screenwriter than a blatant steal from Casablanca – Ilene Chaiken should be drummed out of the WGA for claiming a story credit here. But this is an adaptation of a comic-book, starring Pamela Anderson (Lee, as she was then known): what do you expect? I venture to suggest that, if I was 15, this would probably be the greatest story ever told.

Barb Wire runs a club called the Hammerhead in Steel Harbour, one of the last bastions of freedom in 2017 America, where a civil war is ongoing. She funds the club by catching bail-jumpers and rescuing kidnap victims (inevitably, posing as a stripper or hooker), and has to deal with all sides to keep the venue open. But when her former lover Axel (Morrison) turns up, with his new wife, who desperately needs out, her position on the fence suddenly becomes untenable, and she has to choose which side she’s really on.

For those who know Casablanca, almost every element appears in that Bogart classic:

Element Casablanca Barb Wire
Setting Casablanca Steel Harbor
Era World War Two Second American Civil War
Enemy Nazis Congressional Directorate
Hero Rick Blaine Barb Wire
[A cynical expatriate who owns a bar and plays both sides]
Former lover Ilsa Axel
Now wedded to Victor Laszlo Cora D
Who needs… Exit visas Contact lenses
[Which let the bearer escape to safety]
Location Rick’s Bar The Hammerhead
Head Waiter Carl Curly
Chief Villain Major Strasser Colonel Pryzer
Top Cop Louis Renault Alexander Willis
Slimy dealer Guillermo Ugarte Schmitz
Mr. Big Signor Ferrari Big Fatso

About the only new facet is Barb’s blind brother (Noseworthy) – it’s a shame he doesn’t play the piano, though he does act as Barb’s conscience. This concept, turning one of the most beloved Hollywood films of all time into a post-apocalyptic cheesecake-fest, is worth the price of admission alone, simply for its surrealness and sheer audacity. What next? Britney Spears as the lead in a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life?

While one might question Pam’s acting talents, she is backed by a sterling cast of character actors: Steve Railsback, Xander Berkeley, Clint Howard, Udo Kier and Temuera Morrison. Each one hits the mark in their role, delivering lines with the correct level of enthusiasm. Kier, as usual, steals the show (his presence definitely helped soothe Chris’s eye-rolling), though Berkeley’s sleazy cop is perhaps the biggest surprise, especially if you’re only familiar with him as Jack Bauer’s boss in the first two seasons of 24.

Credit should also go to Debbie Evans, Anderson’s stunt double, since it’s fairly obvious that Anderson, while having an undeniable presence (albeit a presence severely diluted whenever she opens her mouth for more than a one-liner – not that this ever stopped Van Damme, Stallone, or even Governor Arnie), is not doing her own stunts. Despite this, the action in the movie is well above-average, with some really cool explosions and fights, notably Axel’s battle a long way off the ground.

Certainly, Barb’s psychotic opposition to being called “babe” seems somewhat hypocritical given how she dresses. And really, despite the, ahem, “inspiration”, the plotting is a lot less fluid than you’d hope, with scenes that come out of and/or go nowhere. Just keep an eye on the contact lenses – alternatively, a familiarity with Casablanca will help you keep things straight and ignore the irrelevant threads.

I admit, you could argue the entire story is irrelevant, and this is nothing more than an indefensible cocktail of eroticized violence. But those who live in such a moral vacuum as to require Hollywood to fill in the gaps, have got much bigger problems than Pamela Anderson’s breasts. If you can get past the first five minutes (which even I will say seem a lot longer), there’s no denying the effort expended here – albeit mostly on sex and violence, aimed at the lizard section of the viewer’s brain.

Yet curiously, actual sex doesn’t seem to take place in this universe at all, having apparently been replaced by tight-fitting costumes: claiming it’s a comment on life in a post-AIDS world is likely more credit than it deserves. Still, probably not a date movie (except in our house!), for this is trash, with hardly a thought in its vapid little head or 17-inch waist, and no agenda worth mentioning. Film doesn’t always need to be great art, any more than music; reprising the Britney motif, Barb Wire is equivalent to something like Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Perhaps the best comment comes from the Screen It website of parental reviews: “Topics to talk about – none”. There are times when this is a glowing recommendation for a movie, and at those times (probably a late weekend night, with a well-stocked fridge), Barb Wire fits the bill admirably.

Dir: David Hogan
Star: Pamela Anderson, Steve Railsback, Temuera Morrison, Jack Noseworthy

She

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★★★
“She may be the face you can’t forget…the film, too, has its moments.”

Proof positive that a lack of narrative coherence is no barrier to a good time, She makes about as much sense as you’d expect from a film where the soundtrack veers wildly from Rick Wakeman to Motorhead. It’s post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery, with Bergman as She, the immortal goddess ruling a tribe of Amazon warriors. For reasons which are never explained, She ends up tagging along with hero Tom as he searches for his kidnapped sister. Hey, even Immortal Goddesses need some time off, I guess.

Loosen up, realise this bears effectively no relation to the H.Rider Haggard novel (previously filmed by Hammer, with Ursula Andress in the Immortal Goddess role), and you may find this fun, albeit the dumb kind. I should warn you that the first 20 minutes suck, make little sense and are remarkably tedious. Once we get moving, things perk up, because on their travels, Tom and She encounter a wild range of wacky adversaries: chainsaw-wielding lepers, mad zookeepers, vampires and someone doing a convincing impression of Robin Williams at his most irritating. None of these could hold an entire movie, and Nesher realises this, wisely whizzing them past at high speed, despite the resulting random air, like a D&D adventure written by a rank novice.

The action is competent, if obviously cheap, though surprisingly, Bergman is outdone by her sidekick (Kessler). Tom rescues She, She rescues Tom, repeat with minor variations until it all ends in a pitched battle against the bad guy and his army of, oh, say 30 soldiers. Whatever its shortcomings (and space is too short for a listing), lack of imagination is not one of them. Many less inventive movies are out there – thus, this one can only be applauded.

Dir: Avi Nesher
Star: Sandahl Bergman, David Goss, Quin Kessler, Harrison Mueller