2019 après la chute de New York

This movie pulls no punches and makes no pretensions. It sets out from the beginning to do a job, and it not only does it, it overkills it. The job you might ask? Why to rip-off every post-apocalyptic, after the bomb, flick that has come before it. Mad Max/Road Warrior, ripped off, Escape From New York, ripped off large, anything that is remotely cool from almost any flick of this genre previous, is exploited. Hell, they even have some Planet of the Apes in there too... Now don't get me wrong. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's pretty well done 'in that over the top Italian Cinema way'. When I first saw this thing when I was about 15, I ate it right up and it was one of the first 10 videos I owned in my life. And by the time I was done college the tape was worn out. And years and years later when I saw it in a cheap previously viewed video bin for $4, I picked it up again and it was worth every penny.

Fascist kingpins scheme in an office decorated with a futuristic knockoff of "Guernica." Gladiators clash in souped-up sedans, then get hookers dispensed by cyborgs styled like female clowns. A Dr. Evil-like chrome-dome bad guy gets his eyeballs pulled out by hooks, then replaced by peepers from an unlucky donor. Sergio Martino's AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK may be the only grindhouse ripoff of a famous movie that out-invents the original by a power of one hundred. It's supposed to be a copy of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, but it suggests Jess Franco having a field day on the abandoned sets of Altman's QUINTET. Dizzily cast and designed, with more visual ideas and free-form movement than any grindhouse movie of the period, it's a lesson in what B movies are supposed to be--and were, before they turned into bland late-night-Cinemax fodder.

Agreeable fun'n'funky post-nuke science-fiction/action romp . This exciting picture packs kinetic action , thrills, intrigue , shocks and lots of blood and violence . The movie likely satisfy action enthusiasts and Italian Sci-Fi fonds . After a nuclear war, society breaks down into two sides , the evil Euraks and the rebel Federation . In this future , crime is out of control and New York City turned into an inhabitable location and finds itself under siege by violent gangs . A mercenary named Parsifal (Michel Sopkiw of Blastfighter) is assigned a dangerous mission by President of the Pan American Confederacy (Edmund Purdom of Sinuhe the Egyptian and The prodigal) to infiltrate New York City , which is controlled by the Euraks, to take the only fertile woman left on Earth . Parsifal along with two hunk men (Romano Puppo , Scalondro) go out from desert toward feared New York City) . There , they meet Rat Eater King (Yamanouchi) , a nasty Eurac Commander and cruel Eurac Officer named Ania (Anna Kanakis) . They'll have to fight against cutthroats , a band of depraved crazies thirsty for blood and survive some battles to-the-death with lots of blood and gore , including throating-slit , beheading and blow up . At the end a motley group (Sipkiw , Valentine Monner , Romano Puppo and George Eastman) embarks a spectacular escape against vicious murderous .

"2019: After the Fall of New York" (1983) film is a comic book plenty of action , fun, adventures , thriller and surprise-filled entertainment . Spectacular stunt-work plenty of motorcycles, car crashes , with bounds and leaps and explosions . Michael Sopkiw as tough and valiant renegade is passable . Sopkiw made his film debut with this substantial lead part as rugged Snake Plissken-like survivalist warrior hero Parsifal . Adequate plethora of characters with average performances by its entire support cast . There appears ordinary secondaries from Italian B series such as George Eastman as Big Ape , Romano Puppo , Giovanni Cianfriglia as Panther , Ottaviano Dell'Acqua and the American Edmund Purdom ; all of them played lots of Spaghetti , Peplum , Giallo and customary genres of the 60s and 70s . Rumbling and screeching musical score by Oliver Onions , the usuals Guido and Maurizio De Angelis . The picture is a rip-off from ¨1997 , Escape from New York¨ by John Carpenter that was also followed by an inferior sequel by the same actor and director : ¨Escape from L.A.¨.

The picture was professionally directed by the prolific filmmaker Sergio Martino or Martin Dolman . Talented and versatile writer/director Sergio Martino has made a vast array of often solid and entertaining films in all kind of genres as horror, Giallo , comedy, Western , and science fiction in a career that spans over 40 years . He especially was expert on Western as proved in ¨Mannaja¨ and ¨Arizona returns¨ and Giallo as this ¨The case of scorpion's tail ¨ , ¨Torso¨ ,¨the scorpion with two tails¨ , ¨The strange vice of Mrs Ward¨ , Cannibal movie as "Mountain of the Cannibal God", Italian crime thrillers as "Violent Professionals" and ¨Sci-Fi as ¨Destroyer¨ and this "2019: After the Fall of New York". Rating: Acceptable and passable Sci-Fi movie, this is an imaginative Sci-Fi picture in which the camera stalks in moving style throughout a story with enjoyable visual skills . This is a bewildering story , funny in some moment but falls flat and it will appeal to Science Fiction and Italian exploitation fans .

A Mad Max-like rogue soldier is asked by the President of the new world, to go to New York (Which is of course a wasteland) and rescue the last fertile woman on earth, while on the mission he runs into a band of good mutants, savage cannibalistic gangs and a good midget who knows the location of the last fertile woman, while on the way the totalitarian establishment conducts experiments and also want to find the last fertile woman on earth. 2019:Fall Of New York actually predates Hell Comes To Frogtown and Cyborg which basically borrow plot elements from this movie. Of course the main inspiration here is Escape From New York and Mad Max, in fact the main lead looks sort of like Kurt Russell, but with that said this is actually a fun movie. Indeed I was shocked at how invested I was in the hero's plight. I also found many elements interesting, the first one being that our heroes are aided by those devastated physically by the nuclear holocaust, usually they serve as villains but here they aid the heroes in their fight against the normal looking soldiers in the employ of a ruthless cult. Sure the message doesn't mean much and the film is goofy but this element adds likability to the characters and I found myself strangely engrossed in the hero's mission. In fact, for a no-name cast this is actually pretty decently acted. The movie could've used a tighter pace, and the ending seems rushed but as far as Escape From New York rip offs go, this is a very enjoyable product.

**1/2 Out Of 4-(Pretty Good)

Twenty years after a nuclear holocaust ravaged the Earth, the Euraks and the Pan American Confederacy continue the battle for supremacy. Mercenary Parsifal (Michael Sopkiw) is recruited by the Confederacy to try and locate the only fertile woman on Earth, hidden somewhere in the ruins of Manhattan. He is joined on his quest by warriors Bronx (Paolo Maria Scalondro) and Ratchet (Romano Puppo), pretty blonde Giara (Valentine Monnier), dwarf Shorty (Louis Ecclesia) and hulking half-man/half-monkey mutant Big Ape (George Eastman).

One of many Italian post-apocalyptic action flicks to follow in the wake of Mad Max and Escape From New York, Sergio Martino's 2019: After The Fall Of New York is a wholly unoriginal, shoddily made, poorly acted crap-fest full of really badly choreographed action scenes, lousy special effects, manky props, amusing costumes, and seriously dumb characters. Opening with an unconvincing miniature model of nuked New York and ending with the launch of an equally cruddy model spacecraft, with all manner of cheap-jack nonsense packed in between, one might imagine the film to be hugely entertaining as a result, but Martino's uninspired direction and his cast's abysmal performances suck the life out of even the most silly of scenes.

Possibly just about worth watching for the robot clown with a massive glowing eyeball on its head, Shorty's valiant death ("Bastaaaarrrds!"), Big Ape throwing his sword to decapitate several of his enemy, and the hilarious eye-gouging (seriously, how did he not see that coming?), but don't bank on it. 3.5 out of 10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.