Le chevalier du monde perdu

Director David Worth brings us a tried and true post apocalyptic formula film and he comes up with a winner. Our reluctant very low key hero The Rider (Robert Ginty) is compelled into helping rescue the Professor by the Professor's daughter the lovely (Natasia) Persis Khambatta. The Rider rescues the Professor but unfortunately leaves Natasia behind, oh well. The Professor then brings the chosen one along, his rescuer The Rider, to recruit a bunch of nomads who spend their days fighting each other in a circle. The Rider, as the chosen one, must defeat all of the sweaty nomads so they will be compelled to follow their new leader the Professor. I typically find myself fast forwarding through many fight scenes but not this one with girls fighting guys and guys fighting blackbelts, and throw a skinny 12 year old boy who is all heart for the fight, and the requisite little person, wow, you have a highly entertaining fighting sequences reminiscent of a great western bar room brawl. The Professor and the Rider then lead the nomads back to rescue Natasia and overthrow the evil (Prosor), played by the always dependable Donald Pleasence, who rules over a THX 1138 type kingdom.

That's pretty much the simplified plot, but with an Italian flair, The Rider's A. I. motorcycle, great chase and fight scenes combined with a number of explosions that Hal Needham would have been proud of this one really works and may be the best 1980's Italian post apocalypse films which I am sure you will agree is high praise indeed. Don't miss it.

Elegantly, wonderfully, deliciously bad. The only way to truly appreciate this cinematic train wreck is to watch the MST3K version (less than a minute into the opening credits, Tom Servo asks, "Is it too late to kill myself?") Robert Ginty mumbles and grumbles his "dialog", Donald Pleasance reprises his many roles as the androgenous bad-ass, and a supporting cast of extras resembling Jimmy Carter, Saddam, Bluto, and Mimi keep things moving. One of the many films that makes an inexact science of ballistics -- no one with a gun can manage to even nick another character with a shot, even at point-blank range. Worth seeing, if only to watch in sadistic delight as "Megaweapon" runs over Einstein, the squeaky-voiced, talking motorcycle.

A hilariously bad rip off of Mad Max - dubbed "Sad Max" by Joel Hodgson on MST3K - about a jag-off loner, played by Robert "Paper Chase Guy" Ginty, who gets caught up in a plot by the Outsiders and their Elders to overthrow an evil government tyrant played by Donald Pleasance, who must have needed the money real bad, chosen because he is "pure in spirit" despite being a total prick with very little in the way of honor, courage, nobility, etc, yet somehow able to fly helicopters and shoot straight. In order to save the day, Paper Chase Guy has to recruit a rag tag group of idiots including geeks/Renegade Burger King Window Guys, a few soldiers, a black Nazi, white Ninjas, Amazons, truckers, a dwarf lumber-jack and "the Beige Berets". The late great Star Trek chick Persis Khmbata shows up as eye candy, also presumably because she must have needed the money really bad, and Fred Williamson plays a guy who starts out with the heroes but then turns out to be a villain. Lots of car crashes, people getting beaten up, run over, shot, blown to bits, etc.

More hilarious ineptitude than you can shake a stick at, this was one of the best Mystery Science Theatre 3000 rift fests ever. It should be viewed no other way.

It is physically impossible to comprehend the joy I felt in my heart watching MegaWeapon crush that annoying talking motorcycle!

The main character sucked. Everyone but donald Pleasance also sucked. Still, it was worth more than a few laughs.

This film comes to us from Italy, though a lot of the stars and the director are from the United States. I saw this film courtesy Mystery Science Theateer 3000 and it was something a bit different. Kind of an Italian take on the Mad Max films, but not very good. From what I have heard from interviews with the director who is a very cool guy who actually responds when you write him, he basically had to craft a movie with almost a nonexistent script and with more of just an idea. He also said that they were going to do a sequel and if they had, Donald Pleasence would be back and he was going to be ticked! The story is the main problem with this one as is the lack of budget. Also, they really should have went the route a lot of other Italian films and went into overdrive with things like gore, over the top action and some nudity! Instead, it plays out more like a direct to video film that seemed like it wanted to be a seriously weak version of Mad Max.

The story has a man riding his super motorcycle that has a very annoying voice (yes, it talks) through the very green wasteland. Yeah, Mad Max works because the desert scenery makes it look like a desolate wasteland. Here, it could not look nicer with lush trees all over the place. Well, first this rider runs afoul of this strange police force before then getting attacked by random dudes. Mad Max would have killed most of them and gotten their gas, rider simply drives around and takes bullets and arrows before crashing into a wall. He is then healed by these monk type people who have the ability to use light to heal and just forget about them as you won't see them anymore until the end as the rider meets a girl and they are soon trying to infiltrate the bad guy's place and then the guy is deserting the girl and then a scene where they are riding down the road and having an action scene fighting a garbage truck and soon everyone is happy though one guy who could have killed everyone and ruined all the plans is found out to be bad and the girl and rider mysteriously fall in love even though the film never had an area where they could find the time to get together and fall in love, they pretty much hated each other and then the rider deserted her!

This made for a very funny episode of MST3K as they had some great jokes. They also kept referring to Robert Ginty as the Paper Chase guy, in reference to the fact he was on that show. However, I thought they overdid that joke as Paper Chase was not exactly a well known show. It lasted maybe two seasons and I do not even think Ginty was a main player in it, I had never heard of the show before this episode. For the most part the jokes were great as I enjoyed watching that motorcycle get crushed also!

So this film was not all that good. It was kind of all over the place as it tried to be Mad Max, but failed miserably. They just had too many things that did not fit the Mad Max formula. They had car chases and a few vehicles and characters that one could sort of see in a Mad Max film, but then they had the greenery and nice landscape that did not work. The strange monk people that had healing abilities also did not fit. In the end just kind of a mess of a film and one of the reasons that you should have a complete script rather than just try to throw a movie together with a few ideas.