Tuesday, June 7, 2011

The Ultimate Warrior oh sorry, I meant Disappointment

 

Not sure what to say here. I bought this a couple years ago at a comic book shop here in Olympia for $1.00. I have to admit, the audacity of a post apocalyptic movie starring Yul Brynner AND Max Von Sydow was simply too great for me to ignore. Plus I'm a sucker for big box vhs as you might have realized already, so I guess I was pretty much asking for it at the end of the day.

Plot:

New York city, some time in 2012. Apparently society as we know it ended some time around 1981, which means post apocalyptic fashion sense belongs to flared trousers, cowboy boots, vests of one sort or another, and belts made of a piece of rope. The world is full of scavengers, some of them resorting to cannibalism to survive. It is in this post consumer wasteland that we are introduced to Baron (Von Sydow) and his disparate band of survivors holed up in their several block compound. After a cursory introduction of the only other two characters that matter there, they notice a shirtless man Later naming himself Carson, played by Brynner) who has stood still there for at least a day already. At this stage it is worth pointing out that surnames appear to have been done away with, as everyone in this shenanigan only has A name.

Fuck describing the plot, this movie is pedestrian and frankly boring. The first half is almost entertaining in a weird low budget way, but it gets really fucking old seeing Yul Brynner stab people with a buck knife and somehow manage to kill them on the first stab every time. Observe:


Ya see that? You just saw pretty much every fight scene in the rest of the movie.

The sheath for his knife is mounted behind his back on some kind of stupid leather cummerbund. Poor Von Sydow must have really needed some cash, and likely used this as an easy opportunity to get his name into American pictures instead of on the masterful works of genius Ingmar Bergman. Brynner is barely trying here too- like much of his 1970's output he just stands about stoically and says direct/pithy declarative statements that precede an action of one kind or another.

The sets all look like the generic downtown New York/ old west downtown movies sets from the 30's/40's that we have all seen a million times only now with broken palettes and copious amounts of dust everywhere to make it look thrashed. The score has a bunch of noodly synth on it to make it sound futuristic and weird. Oh I nearly forgot, the villain's name is Carrot. Yes, Carrot  like the delicious vegetable (played by ultra cromag William Smith). He and many of his henchmen look like a bunch of wayward leather daddies who lost their biker gear once the apocalypse hit. To give you an idea of how lame of a villain he is, watch this:


Yeah, I just gave away the final fight from the movie, but I don't particularly want any of you to watch this film anyway. Seriously I'd rather you didn't. On the subject of the youtube clips I selected to illustrate: I realized just now that not only are these clips in widescreen, but also appear to be of DVD quality, which means someone actually bothered to rerelease this garbage (Note: it appears on a double feature DVD with Battle Beneath The Earth, but don't say I didn't fucking warn you). In fact I wonder how many people rented this particular copy even? I sure hope they got a good deal on that 5 day rental advertised on front. I can't help but think that the lion's share of this films budget went to catering lunch for everyone rather than the film itself.

I'll just come out and say it, this movie sucks.

1 comment:

  1. Your reviews are priceless. Your genius is showing, sir.

    ReplyDelete