Le camion de la mort

If this is the "benchmark" for putrid movies as one reviewer laughably suggests, where does that leave HEAVEN'S GATE, SHOWGIRLS, ROBOT MONSTER, MONSTROSITY, DRACULA'S LAST RITES, THE ISLAND, THE SAINT, EVE OF DESTRUCTION, ALIEN 2, ALIEN RESURRECTION??? to name but 10!

This is an energetic, low budget little NZ actioner. It's ONLY similarity to MAD MAX is the post apocalyptic oil-less future! Cockliss does pretty well within the constraints heaped upon him. I rather like NZ films - they tend to exude they're own unique little aura, much like Canadian flicks. Pretty much known as BATTLETRUCK everywhere (smewhat understandable - who wants to refer to a flick as WARLORDS OF THE 21ST CENTURY?) the film rips along quite nicely. No denying, the BATTLETRUCK of the title is one mean mother of a four-wheeled monstrosity. Definitely, the way to go in gridlock!

Hero Hunter (Beck) rides his own mean "Street Hawkmobile" and despite being shot pretty much through the heart with an arrow, is able to get straight back on to his dirt-bike extraordinaire and take it up to warlord Straker who looks suspiciously like a reject from a STEVEN SEAGAL movie!

The DUELesque ending is superbly done - shot from the almost identical angles that Spielberg used. It is equally impressive!

If this is the crappiest movie ever made, then pigs already fly! The film is a "6" no question! Kinda left field and semi-haunting music too, reminiscent of Tangerine Dream's work in the aforementioned STREET HAWK.

Reading the comments about this movie, for one, their not trying to sound like Americans, they are speaking New Zealand, thats the way we sound except for the odd over acted lines. i remember this being made and even seeing the land rover series one come to our school.knew the truck driver who drove the Mack, and even where most of the scenes where filmed. Alexandra right in the heart of central Otago. one scene where he is being chased though pines trees is 30 seconds out of Alexandra, heading north from Alex to Cromwell looked left and there you have it!! Back in the 80's this was great but now in the 2000 looks abit cheap. the original tidal was Battletruck but I see they changed to it warlords, Battletruck is better. Just finished watching again, been 24 years since i last seen it... brings back memory's!! But man as kids did we have fun with our toys after watching this!! Same with the movie Convoy....cool!

Another post-apocalyptic sci-fi, recently released on a DVD alongside Deathsport. Likewise, this one is very lowly rated (4.1 at the moment). I can understand that about Deathsport, but I think Battletruck (aka Warlords of the 21st Century) is downright good. I think the problem is that it's very similar to George Miller's The Road Warrior. Some IMDb reviewers even refer to it as a rip-off, but it was being made before The Road Warrior was ever even released, and, at least in most places, it was released almost at the exact same time (in the U.S. both were released in April of 1982). Compared to The Road Warrior, okay, Battletruck isn't nearly as good. But I won't hold that against it. The Road Warrior is all kinds of awesome. Battletruck is merely good, with a less ambitious story, though still probably too ambitious to completely succeed with the small budget it had. But still, it's pretty good. Michael Beck of The Warriors stars (though he doesn't appear for a good while into the film, which is a cool touch) as a lone wolf in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. He rescues Annie McEnroe (a character actress whom you might recognize from Beetlejuice and many other films), who has escaped her villain father (James Wainwright), but is left stranded in the middle of nowhere. Wainwright drives around in the titular truck raiding whatever settlements he can find and stealing all the oil and gasoline he can find. Beck takes McEnroe to a democratic settlement called Clearwater (among whose citizens is John Ratzenberger, who probably has more lines in this movie than any other before he started working with Pixar). They aren't all too trusting of Beck, who does some business with Clearwater but lives out on his own somewhere, and some of the citizens fear McEnroe's presence. That proves insightful when Wainwright comes along looking for her (and fuel). The action sequences in the film are well done, and the scenery is nice (it was filmed in New Zealand). Too bad it was shot in Academy ratio (or perhaps only still exists in that format).

"Warlords of the 21st Century" aka "Battletruck" (as it is known to me) was a movie that I saw once when I was about eleven years old. It came on late night television and it left an extremely good impression on me.. Since then I've been trying to obtain the film on VHS for nearly eight years. It was so hard to get, even when I was in New Zealand I couldn't get my hands on it, as it was only for rent and no one would sell it to me.

Seeing it again it didn't give me the same rush as I was little, but still, it was very entertaining. This low budget "Mad Max"-like action flick is no blockbuster, nor is it surprising since the storyline is very straightforward.. But the battletruck itself looks scary, the music is a little creepy and the acting performances are good enough.. Great for an evening on the couch with some friends, IF you can get your hands on a copy.. 7/10

Pretty good movie that has some great scenery of the beautiful country of New Zealand. Leading man Hunter played well by Michael Beck and the evil boss of the Battletruck team Straker, played a little softly by James Wainwright, are both after the same woman the always bundled up Corlie played by the decidedly not sexy Annie McEnroe. If it wasn't for her long hair and voice she would have fit in with the rest of the guys as the Director never allowed her to establish her character as desirable.The good news is that battletruck never bogs down with Michael beck just having enough charisma in his little body to keep us interested. John Ratzenberger as one of Hunter's helpers isn't really given many lines, but does a good job in a limited roll The star of the movie is stunt rider Warren Timpson who looks great rolling effortlessly over the high desert. This is not a great movie but is certainly and good "B" movie