Phoenix the Warrior

Recipe: a dozen scantily-dressed strippers out in the desert with guns and a few dune buggies. Build sets from found items. Sketch out a hack script, then let the girls improvise actual dialog. Add one desperate-for-the-big-time actress who once had a good part in a big-budget movie. Roll 'em!

This appears to be the sad result of someone taking money for production, spending it elsewhere, and then quickly filming this over a weekend so they wouldn't have to return what they'd spent. There are worse films; the images are in focus, dialog is audible, and the uncredited soundtrack improves as the film goes on. But there isn't anything to see here that isn't done better elsewhere -- namely, AMAZONS from the year before (1986), which had actual sets (left over from Deathstalker) and a lead actress who had actual weapons training. See that instead, and skip this.

The movie is basically about a society of women in a post apocalyptic setting who hunt down the last remaining men and kill them in order to promote the goals of their leader who appears to be a very old borg/emperor palpatine love child. They do so in order to bring about her ultimate "goals" which are never really revealed. The only explanation the movie offers is that she is wanting to create her own race of humans, but how she plans on doing so without men is kind of left up in the air. To put it simply this was a total blue ball movie. A complete build up with absolutely no release. There are only two nude scenes back to back (one involving child birth which totally takes away from the awesomeness of the nude female figure) and before you know it everybody is fully clothed, acting badly, and running around hopelessly looking for the end. And that's just the people watching watching it. Oh bazing! Many times during this movie I found myself screaming for the female warriors of the waste to get naked and start doing each other, but unfortunately that never happens. If you want a good mad max sexploitation movie, then keep looking. This one is NOT it.

With a forumla like that, how could you go wrong? A lot of ways. This is one of the most amazingly bad Mad Max rip-offs I've ever seen. There's a moment where the kid is given a music box and he just tosses it away, an obvious nod to 'The Road Warrior', but then literally tossed away. Also can't forget the 'Thunderdome' inspired "arena" which is just some sticks and barbed wire.

When you've seen one Mad Max inspired movie, you've seen them all, but this one adds a feminist touch... and it touches all the wrong places. It wouldn't be so bad if the writers working on the script actually took the time to think about what they were writing and why.

The plot is simple, all men are dead, women inherited the Earth.

The reverend mother has somehow developed magic powers that are never fully explained and only serve as a plot device to further the story when it's most convenient. Seriously, she apparently has telepathy, but is unable to find the child until she's given a toy he was playing with (a toy car that has somehow survived all this time). Seems kind of odd because she could sense when he was born and knew where he was. Hmm, strange. Most of the plot is like this, nothing is explained, there's no real exposition and you're left asking "why" and "how" to everything you see. If not for the year it came out, I'd almost swear they were doing a rip-off of 'Waterworld' because it suffers from many of the same issues... but Waterworld was at least entertaining and fun.

It is nice to see that women in this barely post apocalyptic world be able to keep their manicures nice, their hair perfectly permed and skin flawless. There also seems to be no shortage on gas, bullets, water and modern clothing, mostly consisting of spandex and aerobics workout outfits and a pair of Levi's. It makes it hard to really understand just how far in the future this should be (the plot itself is over a period of six years as it is).

This movie truly suffers with how boring it is. Even the grotesque amount of scantily clad babes wielding guns and swords (none of which I have any issue with), you're just waiting for the movie to be over with. The acting is atrocious. I'm almost certain everyone was just reading queue cards off screen that were written in crayon. The only one that seemed to have any kind of experience acting was Persis Khambatta, but even she isn't enough to balance so much wooden acting that you could build a fence. Though, I will give them credit, the dialogue was probably written by pre-teen girls who thought this was what the future would be like.

Fight scenes are laughable with how fake they are, never actually landing a hit or attempting to make it look like their punches and kicks have any kind of power behind them. There's even a scene in the arena where they don't even hide the fact that the opponent has fallen onto a soft mat, they literally leave it in the shot! Gun fights are ok... if you like watching swimsuit models pretend to know how to wield a firearm. I've seen women shoot guns before and they do it very well when properly trained, but this is just embarrassing to watch.

If you're a fan of T&A movies or Mad Max style movies, you'll mostly be disappointed, but it's still fun to watch and see what bad movies like there were inspired by.

"She-Wolves of the Wasteland" belongs to the "post-nuclear war" movies wave that followed "Mad Max". Provided with a typical 80s disco keyboard soundtrack, its most unusual element is the cast which comprises almost entirely of females. Did I hear anyone complain? No! One tribe lead by the mutant "Reverend Mother" and the warrioress Cobalt (Persis Khambatta from "Star Trek" and "Megaforce") tries to find the (possibly) last male on earth, but he is on the run with Phoenix (gorgeous: Kathleen Kinmont)... What do we get from this movie? Quite a lot of fun, for example there is a mutant tribe whose gospel includes the holy words "Sesamy Street" from a mysterious distant past, and obviously with all the babes around: exploitation with a capital S. These girls are so violent, when they run out of ammo, they pick up swords to cut throats - or even tear each other's hair! Yes, it's silly, but compared to other flicks of the genre that have too many gladiator fights and car races, it's one of the better trash movies around and worth checking out!

You are the last man on Earth and lots of scantily clads babes rule the wasteland. Wow, this is my type of story line and if its your to then this will be a winner.

This movie was a mainstay of USA Networks former weekend show UP ALL NIGHT. Simply put this is great late night cheese well worth checking out. I have seen the video box (Boris cover art I believe) at several video stores, so no excuses.

P.S. Watch for the well endowed axe wielding babe in the prison fight. Super!