Firebird 2015 AD

First, I got this movie free from a friend who was going to throw it away... I should have let him! If somebody offers you a free movie.... don't take it! This movie is so bad on so many levels. I really like Darrin McGavin, but even he couldn't save this garbage. It's not even funny, it is a crime! There seems to be a goof in every scene. My favorite goof is when the guy is being chased by the cops on mopeds (Ilove cops on mopeds) and in one scene he isn't wearing a helmet and the next he is! Or when 4 cops shoot high powered rifles from point blank range and miss about 100 times! And then get mad at the other cop who kills the perp with a missile. What were they trying to do... wound him? They couldn't even shoot out his tires! And since the "burners" drove on the roads... maybe the cops should have staked out the ROADS! And why are there roads if there are no cars? I love "bad" futuristic movies like "A Boy and his Dog" and "Death Race 2000" and now they seem like "Gone with the Wind" compared to this crap.

I'm sure the biggest item on their budget was the $900 for the used Mustang II to blow up. I also love the cops of the future living in canvas tents in the desert and having no two way radio contact with the rest of the world.

Did I mention just how bad this movie is???? No I can't use those words here...hehehehe! Free movies are never free... there is always a price to pay. My price... there's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back! One last thing... why does Darrin McGavin's son in the movie have an English accent???? WHY???????????

In 2015 AD there is a law against car ownership, which creates conflict.

In the 70s I was a fan of McGavin in Kolchak The Night Stalker and the actor has not changed much since that series so it is a struggle not to think of this as - Kolchak in 2015 AD.

However, this is a flawed flick as just too much screen time is given to a pointless plot about a young couple falling for each other.

Yes, the cars are good, the filming locations are wonderful, but this needed about 30 minutes edited out of it.

There is only one way to watch this movie - late at night when you are winding down and will put up with anything.

I never heard about this obscure piece of apocalyptic Sci-Fi trash before, until I watched a few clips and fragments in a documentary called "The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made", and it instantly looked like something worth checking out. Well, just to safe you a lot of time and trouble: "Firebird 2015" is definitely NOT something that is worth checking out! Quite the contrary, it's a terrible film. Not so much because it says so in the aforementioned documentary but merely because it doesn't make a lick of sense and everything about it just plain stupid. In the year 2015, it's prohibited by order of the US Government to drive around in any type of oil-consuming vehicle. To supervise whether or not all citizens obey this unpopular law, the government founded the Department of Vehicular Control, who naturally cruise around on oil-consuming motorcycles. Their job is to hunt down the so-called "Burners", which is a common term for elderly guys living in the desert and racing around in Firebirds that use up copious gallons of gasoline. See, this could have been the plot of a potentially fantastic post- apocalyptic adventure in the vein of "Mad Max", but instead it became a really tedious, incoherent, unmemorable and extremely pointless Canadian exploitation effort. The film is a big fat piece of nothing, with chases that are lame and car stunts that are embarrassing. It even becomes worse when the script fully begins to focus on the developing love-story between the Burners' son and daughter instead of on the rebellion against the system. The portrayal of the year 2015 is weak and cheap- looking. If you seek thrills and exhilarating vehicle action, you better stick to the original road movie "Mad Max" or one of the numerous wacky (Italian) rip-offs, like "The Atlantis Interceptors", "The New Barbarians" and "Survival Zone".

Okay, I AM writing this review in 2016, the year AFTER the movie takes place - now the past. Oh to hell with it, lets just say the middle of the 2010s so that makes my review take place in the time period the movie takes place. Now with that out of my system lets continue.

Take this scenario. In the mid 2010s gasoline is in very short supply and what is left is drastically expensive. As a result all gas burning vehicles have been banned and this has had a terrible effect on the U. S. economy. But lo and behold a group of people see through this. There's plenty of gasoline to be had they say, the U. S. government is just hogging it all for itself and this group is determined to see to it that the ban is lifted and the fuel is released, and those behind it are brought to justice for the harm it has done. In the meantime the group's favorite hobby is riding their cars around to defy the ban. To keep them in line (and to impose the ban) the government has sent special police forces out to stop this group of rebels - known as "burners" - with whatever means necessary. However nothing is going to stop these "burners" from their mission. But there are those who don't want the ban lifted, mainly the special police forces because if the ban goes, they are out of a job. So its the burners (the heroes)versus the corrupt special police (the villains) and only one side is going to win.

Now that sounds great doesn't it? And if someone else besides David Robertson had directed it, then maybe we would have had a great sci-fi movie. But he did and therefore we don't. Instead Firebird 2015 A. D. is about a bunch of people whether, it is the burners or the special police, bitching about how life is unfair in these hard times while driving around through... the desert. No cities, small towns, suburbs, or abandoned amusement parks. Just lots of empty desert landscape and nothing more. After all it worked for Wile E. Coyote didn't it? Well it doesn't work here because it only adds to the slowness that permeates this movie.

The plot, as it goes, is about Red, a leader of the burners (played by Darrin McGavin) joining forces with his long lost son (Robert Wisden) who has arrived at Red's home (a pit stop for burners as Red has his own gasoline supply) where they plan on reaching Washington D. C. so they can defeat the gas ban. Meanwhile a group of the special police (led by Doug McClure) have set up a camp near Red's compound with the hopes of stopping him. In the meantime McGavin's son falls in love with the daughter of another burner played by Mary Beth Ruebens. And that's all there is! No juicy twists or memorable quotes or set pieces to get into here. Zip! Now if this film was a rip-snorting chase movie being something like Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior meets Smokey And The Bandit used with the above mentioned scenario then maybe we would have a real exciting flick. But nooooooo! What we get is people bemoaning about the sad happenings in their lives while constantly mumbling of how they want to defeat the other team. And all this while racing their gas wasting cars and motorcycles around what seems like the same 1 1/2 mile stretch of desert over and over again.

Now the acting. Marc McClure, always a good actor, feels wasted as the movie's heavy. He often looks like he rather be starring in a more challenging role, like maybe the lead in a softcore porno flick than in this thing. As for Rubens, she is a pretty girl, but what does she really do? And Darren McGavin? Well he just acts like Darrin McGavin.

But what's worst about this movie is the setting. Made in 1982, this was supposed to look at the distant future year of 2015. Instead it just looks like 1982. My point is this, if your going to make a movie about the future MAKE IT LOOK LIKE THE FUTURE! This movie looks about as futuristic as Meet Me In St Louis starring Judy Garland looked futuristic. There is nothing here - outside of the police uniforms and they don't count much - that makes this movie feel like things to come. I guess the makers of Firebird 2015 A. D. think by saying that this story is in the future but not showing anything futuristic was a decent idea. Why? I don't know. Maybe they thought they would get some futuristic details wrong and they didn't want that, so they decided to not show any (hey, ALL sci-fi movies about the future get some details wrong). Or maybe they didn't have the budget (Stanley Kubrick had a tiny budget when he made "A Clockwork Orange" and look what he did!). Whatever the excuse was this is one of the top reasons this movie fall flat on it's butt. We want to SEE the future and FEEL it, not just be suggested of it and little else.

A boring sci-fi movie that doesn't feel like a sci-fi movie at all. Well at least Darrin McGavin recovered from this wreck. His next role was that of Ralphie's father in "A Christmas Story" - and he had the best role of his career.

My Rating (from Excellent to Poor) - Pretty Bad. Just stick to the Mad Max movies instead. Or better yet the original Death Race 2000.

I came across this movie by accident on a Pontiac Firebird group on Facebook and I thought I'd check this flick out. Now the concept of the movie revolves around the government banning oil due to a supposed shortage, which in the film has a U. S senator proposing a bill to bring it back. In the mean time, a group of car drivers called burners use muscle cars as the ultimate form of rebellion. To stop these burners, a police group called the DVC ride gas burning motorcycles to hunt down these cars.

First I'll talk the negatives about the movie.

The main problem with the movie is simply how the story is told. Its pretty boring throughout as much of the film contains many cars driving, but without any suspense or performing stunts, along with long conversations between the characters, which focus on either the burners or the DVC officers.

Now on to the positives.

The cast for the most part were great and did the very best job they had with the story given and the budget, which was obviously low considering the whole movie was shot in the Badlands of Drumheller, Alberta, which does make a very cool setting in a wasteland desert, sort of like the Mad Max films, but with more green and mountains. The main draw for me were the cars featured in the film. The main star car was of course the black and blue 1980 Pontiac Firebird Turbo Trans Am that McGavin drives, along with a black 1970 Plymouth Cuda and a white 71 Mustang coupe that gets blown up by the DVC. Another positive of the movie was the soundtrack, especially the theme song "Firebird" by Billy Ledster. I really with that song was released as a single, but unfortunately this is the only place where it can be found.

Overall I didn't mind the vibe of the movie as I can understand and appreciate a low budget movie and I had an good time with it. Thankfully it is currently free to the watch on YouTube, but I really wish this movie was given an official release to DVD fully restored in HD. Hopefully one day that will happen, but I'll give this movie 1 thumb up for not being a huge disappointment.