Believe it or not, I've watched this KR at least ten more times than KR 2000. It's not because the movie is a masterpiece, but it really does push the envelope on the KR legend and tries to do something interesting with it.
Jake McQueen is a cool character since he's not a pure good guy, quite frankly, the guy was a criminal and ultimately winds up serving justice, not just the law. He is in essence a "young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless and the powerless".
The supporting cast does their jobs well and seeing a pre-Xena Hudson Leick is refreshing. Beach does a good job at being a sheriff who walks the straight line and finds that always doesn't get the job done.
I honestly believe that this movie had great ideas, but should have taken things further. The car should have been built up over the course of the movie rather than only appear in the last half hour or so (a mistake that KR 2000 also made). The post-apocalyptic setting is cool, but the villains should have been fleshed out more. Having them be "cowboy era types" was not a problem, but they should have also been cybernetically augmented, much like their leader. The theme of humans and machines living side by side as opposed to united was interesting as well.
I always regret this show was not turned into at least a mini-series or series of movies like "Tekwar" was. It would have been interesting to see if they advanced the storyline more. Overall, a nice try.