Warrior of the Lost World

Oh happy days! I'm finally getting around to reviewing David Worth's worthless post-apocalyptic picture, the inimitable "Warrior of the Lost World," aka "Mad Rider," aka "Il giustiziere della terra perduta," aka "I predatori dell'anno omega". Yep, anytime you see that many alternate titles tagged on a picture, you just know you're in for something special. Special in a truly terrible, cheesy way, that is! Out of all the "Mad Max" ripoffs that emerged from Italian shores in the early to mid 1980s, "Warrior of the Lost World" was the most memorable. I recall catching it on late night cable back in the 1980s, and I never forgot its jaw dropping cheesiness. I vividly remembered this flick long before the boys over at MST3K tore it to shreds. Megaweapon. Donald Pleasence hamming it up something terrible. That dumb talking bike. Persis Khambatta with hair. The lousy sound effects. Robert Ginty slouching through his role as the hero looking like a hangover tied together with leather and a sneer. Yep, here it is on DVD in all its horrific glory. The fact that the transfer looks like it's lifted right off a VHS tape only adds to the film's general wretchedness.

The movie starts off with a thud as a scroll provides us with more backstory than we'd ever need to know. World War III, nuclear weapons, civilization in ruins, death, destruction...you get the idea. The scroll, which by now resembles the Old Testament in length, informs us that a totalitarian regime called Omega has arisen and rules over the vast wastelands of the world. Headed by the evil Prossor (Donald Pleasence), Omega must battle a group called The New Way for supremacy of the planet. Or something like that. We also learn about a group of miscreants called Marginals. Hmm. Sounds like a plan. It doesn't sound like a viable movie script, especially one shot on an Italian post-apocalyptic budget, but here we go anyway. The movie then moves into the action by showing us the enigmatic Rider (Ginty) and his supremely annoying bike Einstein. Einstein talks, by the way, in a voice that sounds like Judy Landers caught in a bear trap. Anyway, an Omega patrol soon pursues our hero only to meet its doom in a series of explosions so over the top as to defy description. We'll see more impressive explosions later. It's fun, I guess.

The Rider's various adventures lead him into the arms of The New Way. One of the members of this organization, Nastasia (Khambatta) tries to enlist the assistance of the Rider in a special mission. It appears that Prossor has captured her father and the leader of the resistance, McWayne (Harrison Muller), and plans to execute him. Oh dear. With the help of veteran actor Fred Williamson (billed as "Henchman," which sort of gives something away), the two must infiltrate Omega's headquarters and liberate McWayne. In short, everything goes off without a hitch except for one little mistake: Nastasia falls behind thanks to a wound and Prossor captures her. Bummer. So now our hero must stage a new assault on Prossor's compound, this time employing the band of miscreants known as Marginals, in order to free Nastasia and, by extension, the world from totalitarian evil. Expect a ton of shootouts with black clad Omega goons, an extended, poorly choreographed highway chase, and the arrival of Megaweapon. Oh, the movie also tosses out a few red herrings and a twist ending sure to induce a yawn or two. After viewing the conclusion, I'm thinking the producers planned a sequel. Yeah, right!

Shot on a budget of a buck and a half, "Warrior of the Lost World" tanks on every single level. The acting and dialogue are retch-inducing stuff, just absolutely awful dreck that made me want to hurl every couple of minutes. Only Pleasence succeeds here, and that's because he's a ham extraordinaire who could make the most mundane script sound like "Citizen Kane". Unfortunately, Donald must have shot all his scenes in five minutes because he's hardly in this turkey. THIS MOVIE TANKS! I can't even describe adequately the poor quality of the special effects, from the vehicles to the sound of the guns firing, without weeping profusely. So bad! Then there's Einstein and his valley girl catchphrases. Ugh. Or Megaweapon, this big, bad weapon that's supposedly invincible but looks like a dump truck covered in plastic spikes. Everyone's so afraid of this thing and it moves at a top speed of about two miles an hour! I can't imagine what it was about this movie that made it stick in my head all these years, but revisiting "Warrior of the Lost World" is a painful experience only the hardened b-movie aficionado should undertake. No wonder MST3K skewered this puppy.

I don't recommend picking this clunker up unless it's the MST3K version. At least than you'll get a few laughs. This edition is bare bones, fullscreen, with lousy picture and audio quality. Of course, I doubt "Warrior of the Lost World" ever looked or sounded good in any format. It's just one of those films that always looks bad no matter how much effort anyone puts into it. A final note on the movie: did anyone notice that one car blowing up on the side of the cliff? It's shot in slow motion, of course, and when the explosion blooms outward we see the trunk or hood of the car taking off like a rocket. The explosion is so powerful that this piece of the vehicle keeps going up and up as the car falls over the side of the cliff! I suspect that the hood is somewhere in the neighborhood of the planet Pluto at this point. I can't give this movie more than a single star. I just can't. Only Italian post-apocalyptic completists need pick this one up.

i watched this twice just to be sure,and i was right!!!,i still don't understand just what this movie was about except that a lot of stunt men got a paycheck and several actors sliped down the list to become grade z list actors.
avoid this stinker like the pox!!!!!!

Amen to that, brother...now I've seen a whole mess of Italian made, post apocalyptic thrillers in my time, and I'll tell you what, some of them ain't half bad, but Warrior of the Lost World (1983) aka Il Giustiziere della terra perduta aka I Predatori dell'anno omega aka Mad Rider just plain stinks...it stinks on ice...written and directed by David Worth (Lady Dragon, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon), the film stars Robert Ginty (Maniac Killer, Code Name Vengeance), who was no stranger to the world of crappy cinema, along with Persis Khambatta (Nighthawks, Megaforce), probably best known as the character Lieutenant Ilia aka the bald chick, from Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). Also appearing is the late, great Donald `Cueball' Pleasence (Circus of Horrors, The Great Escape, The Mutations) and Fred `The Hammer' Williamson (MASH, Hell Up in Harlem), who appeared in a handful of these Italiano Road Warrior clones/knockoffs in the 1980s including The New Barbarians (1982), 1990: The Bronx Warriors (1982), and The New Gladiators (1984) after the blaxploitation genre petered out at the end of the 1970s.

The film starts off with a whole lot of scrolling text talking about radiation wars, the collapse of nations, a dark age of tyranny, an evil despot named Prossor (played by Pleasence, of course), his militia called The Omega, the Outsiders (the opposition to Prossor and his Omegans), mystical Elders, scatter groups of rebels known as Marginals who roam the wasteland, and a lone rider known simply as Rider (Ginty), destined to become our unshaven savior...of sorts. You know, with the amount of text dumped on us up front, there doesn't seem much need for the rest of the film...anyway, we now see Rider flying down the road on his supersonic, talking speedcycle named Einstein (ugh), and I have to say, given the supposed collapse of society, the infrastructure has remained surprisingly intact (the road are in suspiciously good shape as there's nary a pothole to be seen). After running a gauntlet of dangers (including an Omegan speed trap and some junkyard idiots), Rider crashes into the side of a mountain, initiating a fiery, twisted death (yay!)...but wait, now we're in the mountain (what the hell?), and Rider's being healed by some mystical elder types in togas while being informed that he's the chosen one and he has to save the rebellion (named The New Way...double ugh) by rescuing their leader, called the Professor, who has since been captured by Prossor and his men. Accompanied by the Professor's daughter Nastasia (Khambatta), the pair, disguised as workers, sneak into the city via some bat/spider/snake/mutant riddled caverns, find the Professor, kill about 150 Omegan soldiers during their escape, steal a chopper, but Nastasia gets left behind in the hullabaloo. Next the Professor and Rider organize the Marginals, the various idiot gangs populating the wastelands (Rider participates in a royal rumble, highlighted by his tossing of a dwarf...triple ugh), ultimately beating them and assuming leadership, or something like that, leading up to an all out assault on Prossor and his Omega militia. After a ridiculous high speed battle ala The Road Warrior, Rider and his band of goons face off against Prossor's Megaweapon, which is essentially a tricked out Earth mover. Eventually the rebels get the upper hand on Prossor, but seeing as how he's so very evil, he's certain to have a few tricks up his sleeve...

I hardly know where to begin this film it was so atrocious...about twenty minutes in I began to develop an astounding headache due to, I suspect, the level of suck emitting from my television screen. There's just so much to despise here...on the top of my list would be Rider's insipid, chintzy, dumbash talking motorcycle, the `talking' bit obviously ripped off from the television series Knightrider. The voice of the bike sounded a lot like the voices used for those squirrels in the Walt Disney cartoons, except here it wasn't cute at all, only irritating and grating. When some bad guys would show up, the bike would squeak out something like this..."Badmothers! Badmothers! Badmothers!" Ugh...at the very least we do get to see this odious, tin plated, mechanical abomination die under the monstrous wheels of the Megaweapon with a satisfying, metallic crunch (the crowd cheered). Speaking of the Megaweapon, Rider asks Einstein what it would take to destroy the machine, to which the stupid bike replies 40 megatons...40 megatons of what? A 40-megaton warhead? Regardless, Rider ends up pulling a Luke Skywalker maneuver ala The Empire Strikes Back, disabling the machine much like Luke did for the AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) walker/transport on the ice planet Hoth. Oh bruther...the story, if you wanna call it that, is all over the place, and elements like continuity and flow don't seem to be concern for the director. As far as the acting, it's bad, even for this type of film (and that's an accomplishment in itself)... Robert Ginty seems to be channeling Clint Eastwood ala any of his spaghetti westerns, but doing an abysmal job of it...it's my contention that you cannot act cool...either you've got it or you don't, and Ginty, you ain't got it...Donald Pleasence revives his Ernst Stavro Blofeld role from the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, clothes, mannerisms and all, but given the wretchedness of the script, he's about as threatening as a mewling, de-clawed kitten. His totalitarian state was a joke, as was his ineffectual, inept, and grabastic militia (the rebellion wasn't much better). Here's my favorite line, as he's since gotten the upper hand on our heroes...

"The last thing you'll see is me watching you die."

I loved the scene where Prossor is torturing Nastasia as she's strapped to a lighted table...he's using an old Zenith television remote controller, randomly mashing the buttons, looking confused and bewildered. I will say this about Persis Khambatta ...she looks good with hair, but I'll be jiggered if I could understand a word she was saying. As far as Fred Williamson, he's in the film for all of about five minutes, as his role is limited to his character firing a bazooka out of a helicopter, which seemed to me a bad idea as I would have thought the blowback to do serious internal damage to the whirlybird, but apparently not...here's another treat...the film is populated by spacey sound effects, the kind you can only create via an incredibly cheap synthesizer. On the positive side, the movie did have a couple of spectacular explosions and a ridiculous ending. All in all, this isn't one of those films where you root for the heroes, or anyone for that matter, but only for the end (and, perhaps a long, painful, lingering death to those involved in making it).

The picture quality, presented in fullscreen, on this 905 Entertainment DVD release is extremely dingy and lifeless, looking as if a worn VHS tape was used as the master source, and the audio, supposedly in Dolby Digital 2.0, is often muddled and inaudible at times. There are no special features, but there are chapter stops...four of them...making me wonder what was the point? A shoddy release for a shoddy movie. This film was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, so if you feel you must see it, I'd say seek out that version, as it's infinitely more entertaining.

Cookieman108

this movie is TERRIBLE!!!

however, i think it's a shame that MST3K has yet to release this gem on dvd. i'd say steer away from the actual movie and try and find a copy of the MST3K episode

as the review above said you'll be rooting for the Omega and MEGAWEAPON by the end.

OK. Omega doesn't seem all that bad. And the solution is worse!

Let's see, a society of technology, cleanliness, law and order destroyed by by bikers, punks and folks who've never seen a bath led by chipmunk cheeks. I am not seeing an improvement here.

Go Omega!

Oh yeah, how come Persis has an accent but dad doesn't?