Firebird 2015 AD

I never heard about this obscure piece of apocalyptic Sci-Fi trash before, until I watched a few clips and fragments in a documentary called "The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made", and it instantly looked like something worth checking out. Well, just to safe you a lot of time and trouble: "Firebird 2015" is definitely NOT something that is worth checking out! Quite the contrary, it's a terrible film. Not so much because it says so in the aforementioned documentary but merely because it doesn't make a lick of sense and everything about it just plain stupid. In the year 2015, it's prohibited by order of the US Government to drive around in any type of oil-consuming vehicle. To supervise whether or not all citizens obey this unpopular law, the government founded the Department of Vehicular Control, who naturally cruise around on oil-consuming motorcycles. Their job is to hunt down the so-called "Burners", which is a common term for elderly guys living in the desert and racing around in Firebirds that use up copious gallons of gasoline. See, this could have been the plot of a potentially fantastic post- apocalyptic adventure in the vein of "Mad Max", but instead it became a really tedious, incoherent, unmemorable and extremely pointless Canadian exploitation effort. The film is a big fat piece of nothing, with chases that are lame and car stunts that are embarrassing. It even becomes worse when the script fully begins to focus on the developing love-story between the Burners' son and daughter instead of on the rebellion against the system. The portrayal of the year 2015 is weak and cheap- looking. If you seek thrills and exhilarating vehicle action, you better stick to the original road movie "Mad Max" or one of the numerous wacky (Italian) rip-offs, like "The Atlantis Interceptors", "The New Barbarians" and "Survival Zone".

Mind you, it does sport some fine Alberta Badlands scenery. Still, I wonder why the creators of this film overlooked a shining opportunity for an approximation of wit. In the fascist America of 14 years hence, private use of petroleum is not allowed. Who enforces this? Why, the DVC, the Department of Vehicle Control, represented by the surly chief, a plainly psychotic lackey, the woman who's secretly sympathetic to the rebels and a couple of other nondescript guys. Did nobody think that instead of the DVC, it should be have been... the DMV?

Ponder that, if you're ever bored enough to watch this.

I came across this movie by accident on a Pontiac Firebird group on Facebook and I thought I'd check this flick out. Now the concept of the movie revolves around the government banning oil due to a supposed shortage, which in the film has a U. S senator proposing a bill to bring it back. In the mean time, a group of car drivers called burners use muscle cars as the ultimate form of rebellion. To stop these burners, a police group called the DVC ride gas burning motorcycles to hunt down these cars.

First I'll talk the negatives about the movie.

The main problem with the movie is simply how the story is told. Its pretty boring throughout as much of the film contains many cars driving, but without any suspense or performing stunts, along with long conversations between the characters, which focus on either the burners or the DVC officers.

Now on to the positives.

The cast for the most part were great and did the very best job they had with the story given and the budget, which was obviously low considering the whole movie was shot in the Badlands of Drumheller, Alberta, which does make a very cool setting in a wasteland desert, sort of like the Mad Max films, but with more green and mountains. The main draw for me were the cars featured in the film. The main star car was of course the black and blue 1980 Pontiac Firebird Turbo Trans Am that McGavin drives, along with a black 1970 Plymouth Cuda and a white 71 Mustang coupe that gets blown up by the DVC. Another positive of the movie was the soundtrack, especially the theme song "Firebird" by Billy Ledster. I really with that song was released as a single, but unfortunately this is the only place where it can be found.

Overall I didn't mind the vibe of the movie as I can understand and appreciate a low budget movie and I had an good time with it. Thankfully it is currently free to the watch on YouTube, but I really wish this movie was given an official release to DVD fully restored in HD. Hopefully one day that will happen, but I'll give this movie 1 thumb up for not being a huge disappointment.

Well... This was an awesome movie when I first saw it. Unfortunately that was when I was six years old. So, if you're a six year old looking for a taught sci-fi thriller then this is your movie. If you are an adult looking for a weird reverse-jingoistic slow paced film with a budget that hovers somewhere in the low hundreds then this is your film. This movie is easily categorized as being hard to find for a reason. And despite all this, I want to see it again. On the upside it has a relatively decent quality cast, most of which appear to be mortified by having to take part. And as another poster mentioned, the batcave-style barn is pretty neat regardless.

In 2015 AD there is a law against car ownership, which creates conflict.

In the 70s I was a fan of McGavin in Kolchak The Night Stalker and the actor has not changed much since that series so it is a struggle not to think of this as - Kolchak in 2015 AD.

However, this is a flawed flick as just too much screen time is given to a pointless plot about a young couple falling for each other.

Yes, the cars are good, the filming locations are wonderful, but this needed about 30 minutes edited out of it.

There is only one way to watch this movie - late at night when you are winding down and will put up with anything.