afterthefallofnewyork

If you're after a very self serving, incredibly entertaining post-nuke flick, you'll be hard pressed to find one much better than this ! Somehow it takes elements from Mad Max 2 , Deathrace 2000, The Warriors, Star Wars, Easy Rider, Planet of the Apes, and of course, Escape from New York, and blends them all into one of the most easily accessable Italian movies ever . It's set in 2019. The prologue ( which I'm pretty sure is narrated by the great George Eastman) tells us that the Euracs ( who are an alliance of Europe, Asia, and Africa, although they all appear to be very white) had a war with the U.S. confederacy, and that the Earth was devestated by nuclear war, and all women and most men were made sterile. The miniature of a devestated New York city looks pretty good, and the first scene of the movie shows evil Euracs rounding up guinea pigs with flamethrowers for their experiments. This is a pretty good action sequence. It reminded me a lot of the Dis-infestors of Bronx Warriors 2, except that the Euracs look more like Darth Vader than race car drivers.

Then, in probably the best scene change sequence you'll ever see ( the camera zooms in on the barrell of a fiery flamethrower, and then zooms out of the exhaust of a souped up death car in the wasteland) , we see a contest in the desert between Parsifal ( played by Michael Sopkiw, who a freind of mine excitedly christened 'Tom Cruise lookalike' when he saw him) , and a bunch of guys in another deathcar. The whole scene has a Deathrace 2000 feel to it, as the cars equipped with spikes, sheilds, and cannons attempt to destroy each other. The race announcer in this scene looks a lot like Australian comedian Barry Humphreys. Parsifal wins, and is presented with licences to kill ( which I didn't really get, because everyone kills each other without a licence in this anyway), and a hermaphrodite sex slave. I found the robotic clown thing that gives these to him very unsettling, but then again I find clowns unsettling at the best of times. He jumps on his bike with the hermaphrodite, and rides off into the wasteland. He sets her/he/it/whatever free though, because he doesn't have Eddie Murphys taste in women.

He then gets kidnapped by the Euracs mortal enemies, The New Confederacy. The President (Edmund Purdom- Absurd) asks him to go to New York to bring back the last fertile woman so that they can save the human race. After some coaxing with a gun, he aggrees, and goes to New York on a mission to save her with Bronx (Vincent Scalondro), and Ratchet ( Romano Puppo - Great White). In New York, they get into a whole bunch of pretty entertaining fight sequences. One is in an abandoned bus depot against a gang called The Harlem Hunters...this was a claustrophobic, very tense scene. Another is against The Needle People. I'm not sure why they are called this, but a freind has theorised that they were junkies before the holocaust, and now use giant syringes to hunt rats. That'll do me for an answer. One of the needle people ( who looks a lot like Darryl Hannah) becomes Parsifals love interest.Just when I thought this couldn't get better, up pops George Eastman as Big Ape ! He's the leader of a bunch of apemen. I'm not sure whether they are people mutated into apes, or apes mutated into people. They also meet a midget called Shorty, who overacts even more than the more famous Luis DeJesus does in Bloodsucking Freaks. He tells them that he knows where the last fertile woman is, and aggrees to take them to her.

This is one of the more complex Italian post-nukes. It's great because you can watch it by yourself and really get into the story, or watch it with freinds, and get a lot of laughs out of it. Some of the dialog was very silly. I laughed every time I heard someone refer to 'making babies'. Shorty was usually hilarious too. I was rolling on the ground with laughter after the ridiculous scene where he finds his freind the professor dead. Sopkiw was clearly almost laughing . This movie had some great gore scenes too, and a cameo by Al Yamanouchi ( The New Gladiators) as leader of the needle people. I could go on talking about this all day....in short, it has something for everyone, and a must buy for any fan of Italian cinema.