Warrior of the Lost World

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.

Somebody please explain this movie to me. What exactly was the plot again? What was "the Warrior" saying during the whole thing? What was that battle royal all about? If "the Warrior had just waited four seconds to pick up Persis Khambatta in the helicopter, would there have been a point in finishing the movie? Where did they find a black Nazi? What was the point of Megaweapon, which really seemed pretty weak (Oooh! A flamethrower!)?

Save yourself. Run from this movie and don't look back. The only way to survive this horror is the MST3K version, but it still hurts.

A "Star Wars"-style word scroll informs us that the nuclear war has been fought, leaving the Earth a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but the world we see in the movie isn't very wastelandy at all, what with all the scenic country roads and large office complexes. We meet "The Warrior" (Robert Ginty), a completely average and fairly loathsome guy who crashes his "Supersonic Speed Cycle" into a very obvious and easily avoidable wall. This convinces some fey, robe-clad elderly types that he is some sort of chosen one, so Fred "Hammer" Williamson and Persis "Star Trek" Kambata (with hair) enlist him to help save her Jimmy Carter-like father from the vaguely evil Prossor (enduring fav Donald Pleasance, great as always). What evil things Prossor is up to are unclear, although they involve lots of Nazi-looking guards who turn into dummies when they fall off of buildings. Plus he employs lots of leather-clad S&M dancers who stretch and gyrate all over each other, which doesn't seem very evil at all to me.

Anyhoo, despite his constant whining and lack of any discernible skills, The Warrior succeeds in saving Carter, only to leave Persis behind for no reason other than him being a total jerk. He and Carter go to a fight in the desert that looks like the one from the beginning of "Any Which Way You Can", save for the monkey pooping in squad cars. After fighting a bunch of random characters (ninjas, amazons, truckers, a lumberjack dwarf, a Divine look-a-like) he gets them all to unite to take on Prossor, who employs "Megaweapon" to demolish them. Megaweapon is a giant truck modified to spurt flames out it's front and- that's about it. It's really slow and clunky and easy to avoid, but it does manage to crush Warrior's incredibly annoying bike (which, I failed to mention, talks. In a Valley Girl voice. Ick.). Megaweapon easily out-acts the unintelligible Ginty.

Some other stuff happens and they rescue Persis, following which Mr. Warrior lays a big, wet, long, nauseating kiss on her, rubbing his livery lips and stubbly beard all over her entire face for several excruciating minutes. She seems to enjoy it, even though he's a twit who left her behind to die at Prossor's hands. Oh, and there's a plot twist that fails to make any sense or have any impact on the story, but at least they put forth the effort to have a twist.

I recommend this movie to any one who gets emotionally erect over explosions. There are lots of things blowing up, sometimes in luxurious slow motion. Sometimes we get to see the same explosion from many angles. It's pyro-porno.

I pride myself in my knowledge and appreciation of bad films. Back in the late 1970s, Harry Medved wrote an amazingly funny and brilliant book called "The 50 Worst Movies of All Time" and it kicked off the craze to see and appreciate bad films. I actually found and watched all fifty of the films from the book and then went in search for more awful films and decided to try watching IMDb's infamous Bottom 100 list. Not all of them are available and several have no subtitles or dubbing, so I cannot possibly see them all. However, I've seen a huge number of them and have noticed an annoying trend--nearly all the American films on the list were skewered on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and MANY really bad films were never on this show--mostly because they couldn't get the royalties for all the films. Plus, other bad films have come out since the show ended. As a result, many absolutely horrid films NEVER appear on the list even though they are much worse than those featured on "MST 3000"...such as "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "They Saved Hitler's Brain", "Robot Monster", "The Room" and ALL of the films of Larry Buchanan, William Grefe and Ted Mikels! Clearly this list is NOT even close to being the 100 worst films...just the lowest rated and apparently the TV show's fans vote!

I say all this because although "Warrior of the Lost World" is a terrible film, I've seen hundreds of films that are worse. But it is bad...really bad. Part of it is because they somehow decided to use Robert Ginty in the lead. I am sure he was a nice guy but he wasn't leading man material and his biggest claims to fame had been supporting parts on the TV shows "Black Sheep Squadron" and "The Paper Chase". Also on hand are Donald Pleasance (who would appear in ANYTHING provided it paid) and Fred Williamson (ditto). As for the film itself, it really looks like it was done with almost no script--just a broad outline and lots of guys running around firing the weirdest sounding machine guns I've ever heard in a movie. And, our hero and his babe escaping again and again from some ill-defined enemy.

The bottom line is that YES this is a bad film with an excruciatingly low budget and little to recommend it. But it's not THAT bad...at least not Bottom 100 bad.

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.