Deathlands - Ritorno verso casa

I was not expecting much from Deathlands, but got better than anticipated even if the end result was still very flawed. It does get some plaudits for the acting being better than average, Vincent Spano has never been a big favourite but still does a decent job in the lead, the female lead is also more than a pretty face at least, while Cliff Saunders does what he can with some of the weakest material. As well as some slick editing and authentic scenery. On the other hand the colour filtering is very distracting, so much so at first I wasn't sure whether it was the film or whether my television had broken. The dialogue is really tepid, I am sure they are in the books too(I haven't read them though) but this could have been an opportunity to improve on that and they missed it. The music is generic with nothing memorable sticking out, and the action is unexciting with the last one in particular having none of the relentless adrenaline-rushing thrills you'd expect. What's just as bad is that I just wasn't convinced by the story or any of the characters. The story despite a reasonably intriguing idea was dull and seemed structurally thin, with no sense of suspense or genuine surprise, while the characters are clichéd and just never seem to come to life, you don't learn much about them and in the end you don't care about them or their motivations. Overall, Deathlands is not a terrible movie, I've seen much worse, but it could have been far better as well. 4/10 Bethany Cox

In 2084, a nuclear war wasted Earth, making the sky red of chemicals and the former United States of America becomes Deathlands. Breeds of mutants and half-mutants share what was left on Earth with humans. The vile of "Front Royale" is ruled by a good man, but he is killed by his wife Lady Rachel Cawdor (Traci Lords), and his evil son Harvey Cawdor kills one of his brothers and blinds one eyes of his fifteen years old brother Ryan, who escapes. Twenty years later, the one-eyed leader Ryan Cawdor (Vincent Spano) returns to "Front Royale" with his girlfriend and half-mutant Krysty Worth (Jenya Lano), his human friend and specialist in weapons JB Dix (Cliff Saunders) and the teenage mutant Jak Laurent (Nathan Carter) to face his brother and his stepmother.

"Deathlands" is another entertaining post-apocalyptic story à la "Mad Max" and probably a pilot of a show. In spite of the bad reviews, I found this low-budget movie very reasonable and in the end I liked it. The lead character Ryan Cawdor recalls Snake Plissken, from "Escape from New York" and "Escape from L.A" and the red-haired Jenya Lano is very gorgeous. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Deathlands – Terra em Fogo"("Deathlands – Earth on Fire")

The acting is good, Traci Lords and Vincent Spano are in it, and the red head is a knockout!

It's a Sci Fi where the hero kills the bad guy.

It's action adventure.

Film Fans,

Okay, it's not like the book. Surprised? It never is like the book.

Enjoy it for what it is.

What do you expect Die Hard?

You try and a make a movie with two name actors for under a million, go ahead, see what you come up with.

Farside has a little more juice behind it than this piece by Stanton but she has less time to tell the story.

I really liked the way that the red haired mutant kept calling Spano (the Ryan character) lover. So warm in today's PC world. Refreshing.

But the restrictions of television were evident in the romantic scenes.

It's always a gamble when a book is adapted to screen. It's more of a gamble when a popular book is adapted to screen.

However, when you take a book that's got "CULT" written all over it, that's where your real problems begin.

I've only read a few of James Axler's "DEATHLANDS" books, but enough to know they definitely took some liberties. A major character from the group was completely omitted (Doc Tanner), and a good deal of the backstory was changed, but not really enough to ruin the movie for me. Oscar-worthy, it ain't, but it's nowhere nearly as bad as a lot of people are making it out to be.

What puzzles me is people who claim to read the series are complaining about the rather tepid dialogue. Well, what books HAVE you been reading?! The dialogue in the "DEATHLANDS" series is about as sophomoric as any adventure series (barring "THE DESTROYER" and DL's "sister" series, "OUTLANDERS"). The terms "fireblast", "nukesh*tting", just to cite a couple of examples, pepper the prose throughout these books. Not exactly Henry James.

But, I digress...

Vincent Spano, never one of my favourite actors, actually did a passable turn as Ryan Cawdor, 'though I would've preferred him to be more like the introspective "Snake Plissken" clone the character was created to resemble. Jenya Lano was admirably cast as Krysty Wroth, even if the on screen version was a bit too timid. Cliff Saunders, physically a bit too Phil Collins-esquire to accurately portray the gaunt Armourer, JB Dix, did a good turn, though a bit more talkative than his literary counterpart. A lot of other complaints were that the characters were too "goody-goody". Well, that's as may be, but it's also one of the primary reasons why the "DEATHLANDS" series has a C U L T following instead of mainstream. If these characters were constantly as ruthless on screen as they are in the books, the creators of the movie / proposed TV series would be hard-pressed to get as large a viewership as they'd be aiming to attract.

The villains (and some of the protagonists) were over-the-top, but no more so than in any of the books I've read thus far. While some of these people gave shuddering performances, it strikes me as pretty much spot-on in comparison to the the four books in the series I've read thus far. The violence was toned down SEVERELY, as was the obligatory sex scene between Ryan & Krysty, but, as it's a made-for-cable movie, it's about what I expected, and actually, some of the more graphic scenes they left in really surprised me.

The cinematography was visually startling and very effective, giving the edginess to the Deathlands that the books convey. It's unfortunate that their budget was only around $2 million, but given that's all they had to work with, they have my kudos in spades for even getting it made, let alone seen by anyone.

"HOMEWARD BOUND", the 5th book in the "DEATHLANDS" series, was the director's personal choice from what I read. It was a nice idea, but I think it might've been a bit too ambitious for a debut movie. As far as post-apocalyptic scenarios, the first book in the series, "Pilgimage to Hell", prob'ly would've made a much better choice. The readers are still introduced to the characters one at a time, but there's still some mystery to them, whereas "HOMEWARD BOUND" tries to explain way too much at one time. Had this gone to series, "HB" would've been more apropos as the first season's cliffhanger / second season's opener.

All-in-all, however, it's somewhat heartening to see that the writers and director actually drew from the source material instead of merely paying lip service to it. It gives me hope that they may one day re-do a DL movie, or move on to "OUTLANDERS" with better results.

Yes, this movie could've been a lot better, but it also could've been a lot WORSE.

i think that for the most part the movie was okay. i would have found it a lot more enjoyable if i had not read some of the books first. i wasn't very pleased with Jak, who is my fav charecter in the book. he is supposed to be much more 'economical with words' and i didn't see him use one knife in the movie. Jak is supposed to be a knife fighter, though he does own a .357 Magnum. also, though not as important- his hair is supposed to be longer and he should have two scars on his face, one on his cheak and one on his nose. in addition to that, Jak does drive more then anyone else in the book. he does not need a drivers licens. i was very disappointed at the non-appearances of Lori and Doc, who are key charecters. also--i was not aware that anyone in the story had such good grammer. though not idiots, for the most part they are not really schooled, though most of them could read, not just ryan. overall i just found that there were to many differences from the book.