Guerreiros do Futuro

****CAUTION: This review is Rated R*** (because of: offensive language, mild drug references, exaggerated violence, a soft erotic sex-scene not mentioned in the review, idiotic nonsense)

What can I say? To give you a good idea of what this movie is all about, I'll try to make my comments as pointless as the movie itself. The plot? There is none. But there is a premise: In 2019 the Nuclear Apocalypse has happened. The Templars are a group of violent nut-cases driving modified 'futuristic' looking cars that would make the vehicles in MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR turn around by themselves, drive to the nearest Nuke & Repair Auto-shop and go into hiding until this film is over. The Templars wardrobe and hairdo's are a nightmare to every designer with at least a single notion of good taste, or (depends on the way you look at it) a dream-come-true to fashion-experts high on Swedish designer-drugs. The Templars simply look THAT hilarious. You won't believe your eyes!

The Templars are on a mission, apparently... A simple mission at that too: This world is dead. So, accordingly, everybody in it must die too (except themselves, of course).

The characters in I NUOVI BARBARI have all remarkable, profound-sounding names (like Scorpion, Shadow, Father Moses, One,...). Scorpion is the loner-hero. As much as the Templars have no reason for killing everybody, Scorpion has absolutely no reason for being a hero. As well as Fred Williamson has no reason to be in this flick. All he does is drive around in his amazing buggy, give Scorpion some sort of Jedi-like training during his revalidation and shoot explosive arrows (and boy, do they go "booom!" indeed).

Now, it has been a while since I had so much fun with a very wrong movie like I NUOVI BARBARI. Most of the movie consists of superb (?) action-sequences of the Templars driving and crashing their cars. With a lot of amazingly (?) shot, but utterly pointless slow-motion shots.

The two main attractions of this movie are:

-- The cars: The vehicle's designs are simply mind-boggling. I can not put it any other way. Most of them even have very vicious 'boobie-traps', such like: grenade-launchers, ultra-long drills coming out of the front-grid, car-doors that launch themselves and explode on impact, flame-throwers (of course) and my personal favorite: a circular saw, expanding from the side of the car which decapitates innocent civilians running for their lives.

-- Claudio Simonetti's completely warped musical score: I have simply no idea on how he did it, but he came up with his most spaced-out compositions I've ever heard from the man. It sounds like he might have dropped some extremely nasty LSD and then went nuts on his Korg Analog Sequencer. I tell you: this is a milestone in Soundtrack History. Echo's of Pierre Henry's pioneers-work in electronic music can be heard in Simonetti's score. As well as sounds and bleeps still used by todays electro-acts like Tosca and Autechre (to name only two totally unrelated ones of the so many). His score is motivationally groovy, pulsatingly warped, hauntingly electronic, strangely rocking and almost unbearably dripping with 80's cheese. And will you just please listen to the many completely unworldly sound-effects? Simply every machine or electronic device (from the cars over the guns to broadcasting equipment) makes completely undefinable noises. I will go on a frantic quest in search for this soundtrack on CD. Simply must have it!

Other highlights of this movie are undoubtedly the many various ways to blow people up (often in slow-motion too): Full body-explosions. Head-explosions. Chest-explosions,... One scene even has a guy riding a motorcycle with his head blown off for several seconds! And then there's this one incomprehensible torture-scene: The Templars have captured Scorpion and they're gonna make him die like a Templar. He's hanging in chains on some metal device. Then, George Eastman lashes out with 'something' at Scorpion's body. Then it looks like he is opening his pants (!) ready to give him the ass-f#@k of his life (!!) while some other prominent Templar seems to be holding up a sword ready to chop off Scorpion's head (!!!). I mean, WTF $@%#?!?! Only, you absolutely can't tell for sure what is going on in that scene, because the editor starts cutting up every shot with strangely framed pointless shots while Simonetti's wildly psychedelic sounds come on again. I had no clue what the hell was going on there, other than what I previously told I got out of it.

I just mentioned the utterly pointless framing, right? Well, the cinematographer was very persistent about that technique. Consistently throughout the whole movie, he keeps framing his shots with complete pointlessness. Most shots are often zoomed-in too closely on the action (whether the action be just people talking or cars crashing into something; doesn't matter). Resulting often in the viewer feeling the urge to try and look left or right of the TV-screen to see more of the action. But of course, the viewer then finds himself, very annoyingly, staring at his TV-speakers. Completely puzzling, the way they shot this film.

And to round it up with a final message this film seems to be carrying: Drugs are bad, okay? I don't know if George Eastman's character's superior visions initially came from using drugs too much, or his megalomaniac ramblings were already there to begin with, and they simply got enhanced by doing the stuff. One scene has him smoking the (probably radio-active) green herbs while getting even more high on himself, listening to his OWN recorded voice (on a tape) declaring nonsensical philosophies. You just gotta dig that. Simply hilarious, again.

Vomitron's final judgment: Was this a fun flick?: Hell yes, baby!!! Dig it, or don't! 8/10 Was it a good movie?: Geeezz... What do ya think? 2/10 That leaves us with an average rating of 5/10. Way to go Enzo G. Castellari!

In the future year 2019, the nuclear holocaust is over. What's left are bands of roaming gangs in a desert wasteland. "Warriors of the Wasteland" is one of many low-budget Italian Mad Max knockoff films and is pretty decent one from solid journeyman director in Enzo G. Castellari and the always cool Fred Williamson. The story, such as it is, involves and evil group of white robed baddies known as "The Templars" who raid peaceful wastelander villages and want to rid the earth of it's survivors, so it's up to our hero Giancarlo Prete as Scorpion and Fred Williamson as Nadir to save the world from the evil Templars. George Eastman makes a good snarling villain and there is also a nicely funky score by Claudio Simonetti of Gobin fame. It's also hard to resist the Williamson's exploding arrows, especially when he makes a head shot, or one villain's car that deploys a deadly spinning blade to decapitate his hapless victims. It's this sort of ridiculousness that I found so enjoyable and realized this film was probably one of the more direct influences on the more recent post-apocalyptic cheese fest homage that was "Turbo Kid: Chronicles of the Wasteland." Overall, "Warriors of the Wasteland" is is not a good movie by any measure in the conventional sense, but if you're a fan of these sorts of low-budget post-apocalyptic type of films, then this one is one of the better Italian entries into this disreputable subgenera.

This is a crash-budget spaghetti-western (with open references to films by Sergio Leone) disguised as a post-apocalyptic action film ala "Mad Max" or "Escape From New York". Apparently the whole world has been reduced to gravel-pits, because the whole film takes place in one after another of these - a sure sign the budget allowed for zero set design. There's no point in trying to pretend it's a good film.

However, I should note that there is some good in it; whether enough to warrant a viewing is debatable - let the buyer beware.

First and foremost is that the director, having decided he was going to make an action film using only funds and resources he had at hand, has done a rather remarkable job of keeping up traditional action-film pacing throughout the film. This is largely thanks to camera angles and editing. We get rapid intercuts between close-ups of struggling hands, full-shots of bodies blowing apart, long shots of an over-all battle area - with very little excessive flashiness masquerading as 'art'. These guys intend to sell some tickets, period (and, at the time of 1st release, were actually successful at it). These film-makers either know what they're doing or are really trying to learn what to do (more likely). They certainly deserve points for effort.

Although the characters are all one-dimensional, the actors manage to flesh them out somewhat, even Fred Williamson. And the cars are silly and kind of fun in a dumb way. But it's really the pacing that saves the film.

Hey, it's late at night, you had to work over-time, you're over-tired, you wanna crash with a cold drink and numb out before a forgettable action picture - well, this could be the one.

Pulling cinematic threads together I Nuovi Barbari saw a second life when it's model city sets were reused in Lucio Fulci's Guerrieri dell'anno 2072 (The New Gladiators). I could be wrong and an Italian man could have gleaned a lot of work building cardboard cities for all those 80's Italian post-apocalypse films. Regardless, the opening credits let us know the world came to an end due to a meteor or some stagehand's forgotten cigarette crashing into a cardboard city. After this we have to deal with another of Max Rockatansky's cousins that suffers a few mental setbacks. Scorpion drives around in his mock up V-8 Interceptor with a big glowing bubble dome in the roof, superfluous tubes, and hood mounted chrome skull. Scorpion's enemies are a smorgasbord of peeved caddies that roll across the wasteland in their super-modified golf carts complete with slicers, dicers, disintegrators, spears, donkey molesters, and other implements of golfing terror and destruction. The terrified victims of these rampaging carts are hard pressed not to completely outrun these lumbering carts of woe and despair. Laden as they are with donkey molesters, flame throwers, tin foil, and extra passengers these vehicles of the brave new wasteland top out and redline around 2 MPH. Apparently all the survivors of the wasteland made fun of the golf carts because One (George Eastman), the leader of the post-apocalyptic rugged caddies that call themselves the Templars wants to kill everybody in the wasteland. Scorpion (Giancarlo Prete) being the yin to One's yang only wants to kill a select few people, mostly ones that ride around on golf carts causing trouble. One (Eastman) establishes himself as the true entity of evil early on by effortlessly ripping (or rather breaking) a bible in half in a rather comical display of strength. Giovanni Frezza makes an appearance as the young mechanic and you may very well recognize him from Bava's Demons 2 or Fulci's House by the Cemetery. Giovanni gives another stellar performance as he freely transforms from his diminutive figure to a strapping, full-grown stuntman in a blond wig when convenient.

Warriors of the Wasteland is a study in one take magic as it becomes painfully obvious that many special effects were botched and just left in, no retakes allowed. Most painfully obvious is a fleeing citizen almost, but not quite, (botched special effect!!??!?!) decapitated by a golf cart donkey molester. The head kind falls over staying connected and the body just slumps over, although it twitches effectively. Anybody can tell this should have been shot over but either the budget didn't allow or Enzo G. Castellari (the director) just didn't care. Another effect has a golf cart shaft spear a man's rump, this may have been intentional as Scorpion receives a similar fate later on with a different kind of spear. Regardless, the effect is particularly lackluster. At this point things are bleak and we haven't even gotten to Fred 'The Hammer' Williamson showing up. In a departure from ripping off Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, I Nuovi Barbari steals from Rambo II and has Johnny Rambo appear, only Sylvester Stallone has morphed into Fred Williamson for so reason, go figure. Nadir (Williamson) decapitates his share of helmeted cart riders with his explosive bow and arrow combination. Add into the mix Scorpion's love interest and you have your fab four fighting the white clad Templars of destruction and their menacing go-go golf carts of pandemonium.

Look for wooden acting, flat action, and gratuitous use of metal beer kegs placed inconveniently as obstacles to be rammed by vehicles or have actors fly through. Even at its worst I Nuovi Barbari is a superior work to later American counterparts that involve either lots of water or a guy delivering post apocalyptic parcels made by a certain guy that waltzes with lupines.

As far as post-apocalypse Italian cinema goes, Warriors of the Wasteland is just dull. None of the characters are nearly quirky enough to entertain, they're just bleak, bland characters not nearly archetypal enough to empathize with. The fact that Scorpion's mock muscle car is up against nitro-charged golf carts makes for rather dull chase scenes. By comparison Escape from the Bronx had tightly choreographed action scenes that set your adrenaline pumping. Escape from the Bronx was made two years after this so Enzo may have had time to sharpen up his directorial skills. However 1990: I guerrieri del Bronx (Bronx Warriors 1990) was made the same year as Warriors of the Wasteland and is leaps and bounds better than I Nuovi Barbari. I'd just chalk it up to Enzo having uneven directing skills or possibly just tacking an extra movie on after Bronx Warriors wrapped up filming. As far as Italian apocalypse films go, this is one of the weaker entries.

I only write reviews of movies with low rating, which actually are not that bad. Give them a chance!

Yes, they tried to make another Mad Max and yes, they failed. But, the movie is still watchable and good in some parts. Vehicles are SO BAD that they actually look like the apocalypse happened! Nothing can be perfect when you have nothing! So I find this great! :) Acting is OK, Fred is great choice. Fighting scenes are bad, but if we look at the budget...

Don't expect much and you will watch it to the end, especially if you like post-apocalyptic movies as I do.

5.5/10