Road Wars

Obvious attempt to cash in on Fury Road, and it's from Asylum, so you know to go in with low expectations. But, I'm a fiend for post-apocalypse road war stuff, so I had to give it a chance. And... it was okay. It benefited from low expectations.

The cars are at least good enough to have maybe passed for extras in some of Fury Road's crowd scenes, so there's that. Unfortunately, they don't really get to do much. There's only one real chase scene and it's brief and doesn't entail much except driving around, with no real stunt work. The cover shows lots of vehicles and explosions. You get about five or six cars, and no explosions. As for the driving scenes, director's never going to be confused with George Miller.

Plot-wise it's Mad Max cross-pollinated with I Am Legend. Society's broken down and the few survivors and scavenging for everything. Gasoline seems to be more plentiful than water, though, since petrol's the one thing they don't seem to fret about much. A lot of people have become victims of a "vampire virus" and, since they luckily have a biochemist on their team, they're trying to work on a cure. One guy who may be immune shows up; the filmmakers are so desperate to make him seem like Mad Max that he has an Aussie accent, and they even have him wearing a black leather jacket with one shoulderpad.

Their big problem is they're running out of ammunition to fight off the nightly attacks from vampires, and to look for more they'd have to leave the only known source of water. Mostly they sit around talking about this, when you'd rather they were driving. It's not really that difficult to make one of these movies more satisfying -- just get decent-looking cars (which they did) and show them driving around a lot (which they didn't).

So, it's not very good, but it's still better than most of the Italian Road Warrior ripoffs that swarmed the video stores back in the days of VHS, so, I cut it some slack. Production values aren't bad, the survivors looked suitably skangy, and the acting's not great but isn't painful, either. And the plot's not compelling, but there is one and it's not overly clumsy. It's an okay way to kill 90 minutes as long as you're not expecting too much. Better than most Asylum films, but that's damning with faint praise.

B-movie? Try D. This flick is cheap, lower than low budget with serious issues with scenography (brand new trucks against supposedly post- apoc buildings), costumography (neatly trimmed, fresh looking actors in supposedly post-apoc world).

However, despite bad acting the movie has some good points. No CGI, all is done with cool MadMax-esque vehicles. Attempt at Aussie accents is also sort of a bonus (for being an homage) if not a slight comic relief.

The best in this movie is the story. It doesn't have a beginning. Audience is waking up into a nightmare (just as main character does). It doesn't have an ending either. What kind of ending is there after the end of the world? In between the moment lights come in and lights come out, we see an authentic, believable story about survivors. they have hopes, doubts, they have issues, they love beyond death, they are just trying to do their best to survive. I the end, they are defeated. Again, by love...

Have made no secret in the past of intensely disliking, and even outright hating a lot, a vast majority of The Asylum's (near-universally maligned for good reason) output, though there is curiosity as to whether they are capable of making something good and compulsive about their output's badness. Admittedly, The Asylum do have a small group of watchable films and the occasional (big emphasis on that word) above average one, unfortunately outweighed by the lacklustre at best and often dreadful films they churn out.

'Road Wars' is a mock-buster of 'Mad Max: Fury Road'. Although one of its year's most positively reviewed films critically, like several acclaimed films it seems it's garnered some at times vitriolic hate. If those that disliked 'Fury Road' watched 'Road Wars' out of curiosity it is more than likely that they'll appreciate that film more once seeing 'Road Wars'. While not quite one of The Asylum's all-time worst everything bad about their output is present and it's basically an abomination that shows no shame it seems in being as bad as it is.

1/10 is not a common rating for me these days and generally try to be encouraging and balanced when reviewing. There have been a fair share of films seen that have deserved the rating and look as though they didn't even try, other than wasting good actors that is one of film's biggest cardinal sins for me. That's the case with 'Road Wars'.

As expected, 'Road Wars' is cheap, and that's being generous, visually, even for something made on a low budget. It's very drably and sometimes dizzyingly shot, incoherently edited (bacon-slicer-like) with glaring and unforgivably sloppy continuity errors and even the scenery doesn't make much impression despite being actually the least bad aspect of the film. There are worse special effects in other Asylum films, they still look very cheap though and like they were an afterthought and made in haste. Am aware of the film being low-budget, but there are examples of low-budget films that still don't look awful and manage to be pretty good.

Can remember little about the music, which tended to be intrusive, annoying and out of place. The script makes little sense, sounds awkward constantly and on the wrong side of camp throughout.

There is absolutely nothing thrilling, tense, suspenseful, emotionally investable or fun about the story. The predictability may have been forgivable if the film was actually engaging let alone exciting but it fails to be either throughout. 'Road Wars' is basically non-stop dullness and intelligence-insulting ridiculousness, with unintentional humour because of the excessive cheese, too much often extraneous talk and not enough action and extremely flat and irritating character writing.

Its incredibly dreadful with no exceptions acting from a cast that wouldn't even pass for Z-grade is one of the film's worst assets.

Overall, really poor. 1/10 Bethany Cox

A group of post-apocalyptic survivors tries to defeat a deadly virus that is turning people into voracious zombies, whilst rival clans battle for supremacy.

It's no 'Mad Max', it's not even unhappy or moderately irritated Max despite some reasonably attractive costumes, stage design and well-engineered audio-visual effects. There are countless Italian-made wasteland movies from the 80's that are superior to this incoherent drivel which lacks imagination and basic plot. Just a series of predictable zombie vs survivor encounters made on a limited budget showcasing tired acting, cliched and illogical action sequences, and less than spectacular stunt-work.

In-fighting causes more fatalities than the zombies which ultimately isn't what we came to see - lots of leather, clown make-up and puerile dialogue with little to recommend.

HEY EVERYBODY ITS ME (4) and today we review " upset dax: furry choad" ...the movie !!!!!!!!!

SO here we have yet another "asylum" production ripping off a block buster movie ...obviously "mad max: fury road" that came out around the same time ..... instead of "war boys" we have "zombies" .... and instead of "mad max" we have "steve" from accounting .... you know some random forgettable looking average joe looking guy with an aussie accent and a halloween try hard mad max costume on .... THEN we have the furiosa chick for the movie ? ...the "side chick" if you will being almost the main character ALSO in this film as she is looking for a cure for her man and yadda yadda ........totally different story line form mad max though .... but visuals are very close BUT as with 99% of ALL end of the world films .... it always turns out like that ......you get either mad max look, or cyber punk look ....thats our only 2 choices .... WHY ?!?!?!?!?

Its a competently made film over all ..... usually the asylum films are though ...they get a lot of crap thrown their way for ripping off the block buster films BUT they do a decent job most of the time now ...in the beginning ...meh not so much BUT NOW days ....yea ....they do pretty good ...

story was mid level, nothing to great , the standard "search quest" deal,.... with the gasp "twist" ending you knew was coming from a mile away ... though ... the way the "heros " handled it was kind of stupid .....i mean ... when facing end of your species , and you find a cure, BUT it has ONE ...only ONE set back and really that set back isnt that bad .... i man the cure leaves you pretty much fine with a livable normal life .... but instead of accepting that they get all NO WE MUST BE PURE AND "NORMAL" AND AAAHHHHHHHHHHH KILL KILL KILL!!!!!! Like dude calm your milkers sir .....your fine ....they are fine ...everyone could literally BE FINE but instead you think one tiny thing ....and its the end of the world .....again ...... news flash its already over ...theres like 200 people left max and you can change it all back ....BUT NOOOOOO you want to be a jerkoff last second because ???? Writers block on how to end the film is my assumption .... didnt have a "good way to end it soooooo we get that

couple of major issues here that could have easily been fixed to make it a solid film:

#1. Should have NOT had an aussie for the lead male hero role ..... i mean ...end of the world movies already have to be compared to mad max literally every step of the way so why make it even easier ??? Doing this would have made it stand alone as its own film - however i know then it would NOT have cash grabbed the mad max train and that was the sole purpose of this mockbuster .....so i get it .... but a man can dream cant he ....

#2 the TERRIBLE SOUND TRACK .... jesus christ REALLY ? .... some ... pulp fiction would be sounding garbage ? ... ugh ......nothing says serious zombie end of the world movie like bad surfer music .....

# 3 .... at about 56 mins in ... the black dudes eyes .... LOL ... did no one think to do a reshoot for that one scene ? ... no one .. on the entire crew ....did ANYONE watch the dailies ??? Someone notice he shut his eyes on his own ? ... no one AT ALL ?!?!?!?!? Okay ... apparently an entire crew of blind people shot this film ..so actually now that i think about it ..im impressed how well this came out ....

other wise ....IF you do NOT think of it as a bad mad max parody .....or rip off ....then it isnt half bad really .... its got some action going on ...basic story, acting is on par .....i mean easily a standard filler film for a saturday with nothing to do , just put it on and waste a couple of hours kind of deal sure ... OR you could rewatch MAD MAX FURY ROAD again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

4/10.