Another post-apocalyptic sci-fi, recently released on a DVD alongside Deathsport. Likewise, this one is very lowly rated (4.1 at the moment). I can understand that about Deathsport, but I think Battletruck (aka Warlords of the 21st Century) is downright good. I think the problem is that it's very similar to George Miller's The Road Warrior. Some IMDb reviewers even refer to it as a rip-off, but it was being made before The Road Warrior was ever even released, and, at least in most places, it was released almost at the exact same time (in the U.S. both were released in April of 1982). Compared to The Road Warrior, okay, Battletruck isn't nearly as good. But I won't hold that against it. The Road Warrior is all kinds of awesome. Battletruck is merely good, with a less ambitious story, though still probably too ambitious to completely succeed with the small budget it had. But still, it's pretty good. Michael Beck of The Warriors stars (though he doesn't appear for a good while into the film, which is a cool touch) as a lone wolf in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. He rescues Annie McEnroe (a character actress whom you might recognize from Beetlejuice and many other films),who has escaped her villain father (James Wainwright),but is left stranded in the middle of nowhere. Wainwright drives around in the titular truck raiding whatever settlements he can find and stealing all the oil and gasoline he can find. Beck takes McEnroe to a democratic settlement called Clearwater (among whose citizens is John Ratzenberger, who probably has more lines in this movie than any other before he started working with Pixar). They aren't all too trusting of Beck, who does some business with Clearwater but lives out on his own somewhere, and some of the citizens fear McEnroe's presence. That proves insightful when Wainwright comes along looking for her (and fuel). The action sequences in the film are well done, and the scenery is nice (it was filmed in New Zealand). Too bad it was shot in Academy ratio (or perhaps only still exists in that format).

Imagine you're a Hollywood studio. Let's say you're New World Pictures. You want to ride this wave of post-apocalyptic goodness from Mad Max, but you're just been hit by the 1981 Writers Guild of America strike. What will you do now?

Go to New Zealand, that's what.

Also known as Warlords of the 21st Century and Destructors in Italy, this film doesn't really break any new ground. But it does live up to its title - it has a battletruck.

As it usually happens in thee films, Earth has been wiped out as the result of a thermonuclear war that started over fossil fuels. Now, gas is the most precious of all commodities.

The opening narration that tells us all of this is awesome. That's because its actor Randy Powell, who also plays Judd in the movie, transmitting a ham radio broadcast in Los Angeles, California to the filmmakers back in New Zealand.

While exploring a compound once thought to be radioactive, Straker (James Wainwright, Killdozer) discovers all the diesel fuel that the world will need. But his orders to kill the owners are ignored by his daughter Corlie (Annie McEnroe, who was in Snowbeast and is married to Edward R. Pressman, who produced Christmas Evil, Conan the Barbarian and all of The Crow movies, amongst many others). On the run and lost in the desert, she meets our hero, Hunter (Michael Beck, The Warriors, Xanadu, Megaforce).

What's up with all of the heroes after the end of the world getting names like Hunter and Stryker? I mean, I dig it, but their parents really must have all been consulting the same Refinery 29 articles about "What to name your child after the bomb drops."

Hunter has a bad ass motorbike and lives in the walled city of Clearwater Farm, an actual democracy in the midst of all this lawlessness, but soon Colie's father finds her and attacks. As her dad's mercs destroy the city and torture Rusty the mechanic (John Ratzenberger in a post-nuke movie!) to learn the secret location of where Hunter really lives.

If our hero is going to defeat Straker and his battletruck, he's going to need more than just a bike. He's going to need an armored car of his own. Hunter doesn't care about anything, even blowing up all of the fuel just to prove a point. Of course, he's going to kill everyone in his path, save the girl and then take off into the desert all by himself. That's how these movies work.

Director and co-writer Harley Cokeliss would go on to direct several episodes of Hercules and Xena, as well as Black Moon Rising and Dream Demon.

My brother and I had never heard of this movie and had no intention of seeing it or any other movie the day we saw it. Just after having lunch, we walked by the theater and they had big signs announcing that Warlords of the 21st Century was only $1! Wow--a first-run movie for only a buck?! So we took the bait and saw the movie with absolutely no preconceptions--we didn't know who was in it, what it was about--in fact, we had never heard of it before.

So, my final verdict?! It was overpriced--I want my dollar back! In fact, they should have PAID US to see this claptrap. The movie had lousy acting, writing, directing, etc. etc etc. It was a cheap, quickly assembled and uninteresting knockoff of the Road Warrior flicks. So bad that Troma films would be ashamed to release it!