The Ultimate Warrior

Well, I’ve managed to find a movie that defies all of my attempts at logical enjoyment. Don’t get me wrong, I love bad movies, but I’ve finally found a bad movie worth writing about: since films like House of the Dead and Cheerleader Ninjas are still endlessly amusing, they cannot qualify…there is a campy fun to them that keeps them apart from this particular selection. No, the film in question comes to us from the hallowed year of 1975. The Ultimate Warrior represents one of the worst (much more on this later) visions of the post-apocalyptic future ever committed to film stock. In fact, the utter boring-to-look-at-ness, when combined with some of the most hollow performances yet surrendered by human beings, creates a dynamic that totally thrives on inflicting small, intense flashes of pain on the viewer. If the Marquis de Sade had access to one film, he would probably choose this one.

The scene is New York City, in the too-far-off-to-think-about year of 2012 A.D. Two hopelessly transparent, semi-utopian groups have erected fortresses for themselves and are at an uneasy standoff. All that is evil in the world, helmeted by the enigmatically pissed-off Carrot (yes, the script is so hopelessly amateurish as to name the red-haired antagonist Carrot [William Smith]), is on a constant regiment of raids, kidnappings and attacks. Our good socialist paradise, located not but 400 ft. from the throngs of evil, is headed by the Baron (Max von Sydow), a smart man who leads because he has the largest collection of books and other high cultural ephemera to still exist: the bomb left only gaudy and unmistakable remnants of the aristocracy behind. A wandering mystic/fighter found to be named Carson (Yul Brynner) begins the film by mysteriously standing in the middle of the street, presumably meditating. The Baron knows that he must have the help of this man – because he OBVIOUSLY must be a fighter, and, you know, not just some crazy guy standing in street, looking like a tool. An entourage is sent out, to parley if you will (EYE DEMANDE THE WRITE TO PAR-LAY, quoth Keira Knightly in the recent Pirate film bearing her presence), and after a banal exchange of dialog, the mystery fighter-man eventually joins the side of good – but not before a crappy knife fight.

Technological rant interlude: For a film that sells itself with the tagline “A Film of the Future,” there is very little that is futuristic about it. “Well,” you say, “the film is post-apocalyptic, and thus this is excusable.” “NAY,” I say, “there is no way that the bomb eradicated guns and left crappy notions of utopia instead.” That’s right: in this particular vision of the future, there are no guns. There is a crossbow. There might be a gun hiding in here somewhere, but I was honestly too horrified at this personality-less film to watch it with any sort of critical eye. Carson pretty much only fights with a knife. Usually the protagonist of an action film at least gets some sort of Freudian gun, sword or spear, but in this case, our hero dukes it out with a Bowie. Additionally, the film’s conception of New York City is very, shall we say, “fake.” The film was done almost entirely in a studio, and what passes as post-apocalyptic New York looks entirely too much like leftover-1940s-musical to even hint at the requisitely sinister suggestive power of the post-nuclear urban space. John Carpenter had the right idea with Escape from New York (1981), since his city is soot-covered, dark, creepy as all get-out and spooky as HEY YA. This film pretty much contains no special effects, only the most rudimentarily choreographed fights, relatively little liveliness and no smiles.

Knife fight = successful for Carson. He is quickly whisked to the Fortress of Gooditude and becomes more closely acquainted with the Baron. Here is where writer/director Robert Clouse (who’s other illustrious credits include a couple of martial arts films, which believe it or not are not that bad…Enter the Dragon [1973] and Black Belt Jones [1974] are beautiful things) earns his keep. Carson and the Baron find a mutual appreciation for, none other than, CIGARS. Brilliant! The human element! Now I really care about the characters, their petty struggles, their false world, AND the lame things that they say! I’m so glad that I can now view Carson as a human and not just some mystical fighterly type person man. SORRY. My sarcasm detector just broke (model N429, $49.99, shop smart, shop S-mart), so that last rant probably sounded authentic for a second. More authentic than this film, that’s to be sure.

Permit me to gloss through much of the (in)action that follows, if you will. Carson is introduced to many of the inhabitants of Snorzesville, and learns that the smartest among them is a whiz at botany. With his help, the world could once again be populated by resistant plant strains that could provide food and hope. I have no problems with this, sounds intriguing…I can’t wait to figure out where things go. Also, a man and his bitch wife (normally a word I reserve for female dogs in heat, but this woman is entirely without logic and use) begin some LAME side-quest that depends on the raiding of an old storehouse for some powdered milk for their sickly child. This, of course, is where we get another taste of Carrot and his gang, who take them to task and lure Carson into trying to rescue them. He tries, crap ensues, he fails. The hero fails? That’s a new, slightly interesting way of throwing a Hollywood curveball, but rendered craptastic based on the ease with which he fails.

The “yadda yadda yadda” of Seinfeld is a brilliantly asshole-ish device, but it means more now than ever. THINGS HAPPEN, in a manner that is as worse as or worse than the banality we’ve already seen…yadda yadda yadda. However, Captain Botany is killed in a raid, and it comes to light that the Baron’s daughter is pregnant. Thus, the ultimate quest for the ultimate warrior is secured: he is to take these miracle seeds, the pregnant daughter and her unborn child to his vague, already-disclosed-but-not-important-enough-to-break-humorous-rant location of, loosely quoted, “some island off of North Carolina.”

When the escape-from-toil scandal surfaces among the other socialist utopianites, a mob murders the Baron. MAN HAS SUCUMBED TO HIS BASER ANGERS AND LET THE LIGHT OF LOGIC GROW DIM, LIKE SO MANY FIREFLIES IN THE DEWEY MORNING MIST. Meanwhile, a listless chase ensues in the abandoned subways of New York. I will abstain from giving anything more away. However, note that in the end, like any other good struggle-fest, the contrived baby and nature as hope metaphors leave the darkness of the subway and the city and are on the beach, accompanied by a man who, like us, has learned a little bit about himself along the way.