Barb Wire (1996)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Overrated and overhyped

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's easy to laugh at a failure: let's check why it happened instead... That movie was never intended to be a masterpiece, but a honest and camp entertainment. In those years, it was still normal to produce films with a low budget, so they did it: a star (remember, there weren't reality show then), a story (based on comics), and a production team (related to Polygram, I suppose) . What went wrong? First of all, it needed more money, for the locations, the costumes and everything you have to buy to put it in a movie. The director is a music clip director, so he lacked experience, and you can really tell! The script is not bad even if the screenwriter did better elsewhere. The cast is ok, Udo is great and Pamela played quite good (I mean... it isn't Shakespeare, but she works) . A great problem is sexyness: you have got a sexbomb but you can't pass certain limits; it is obviously a fatal error, you must dare sometimes, but the worst is that Pam is often not at all sexy, on the contrary almost ridiculous (like H. Berry in Catwoman, not like M. Pfeiffer in Batman returns). Think about how the director of X-Men "loved" and enhanced Mystica, can you see what I mean?! Besides, in those years music was still important in an action movie, but here it's boring and annoying (and very cheap). However, I still watch Barbwire, sometimes, because it isn't boring like a 400.000.000 dollars blockbuster for dummies and when you watch it you can think how it could be, on the contrary those big movies are (almost) always the same...

So, after 28 years, Barb "Don't Call Her Babe" Wire references the exceedingly better movie, Batman. I guess I can't complain; The Matrix references Superman after 100 years.Don't hate me – I didn't hate this movie. Oh, yeah it wasn't good or great, but it wasn't terrible. I actually liked seeing the sassy Pamela Lee Anderson (PLA) in leather and her kick butting ways.I acknowledged right away: this is a leave-your-brain-at-the-door feature, so I let loose. And if you do, PLA is kinda fun and sexy. (And that's coming from a gay male.)So, what we have here is Post-Civil War II and a mercenary-for-hire but only to keep her night club afloat. Her past(s) get in the way and she truly must decide what side she doesn't want to be on.Yeah. I watched this as part of my mission of movies to see from the How Did This Get Made podcast list. Otherwise, I wouldn't have ever seen it. Did I hate it? Again, no. It was fun 1990s garb never to be taken seriously.For some reason – again from a gay guy – I found her sexy and ridged enough to like and care about her making it alive to the end. While not the best 1990s action film, I would actually still, unbelievably, recommend it!* * * Final thoughts: I try to do no research before I see a movie – I love to go in fresh and cold. I knew of this movie years (almost decades) ago, but never gave it a second thought until it popped up on my How Did This Get Made podcast list. OK, I knew it existed, was on the HDTGM list and it starred the voluptuous PLA, but what I wouldn't learn until following my viewing was that…this was a retelling of Casablanca??? Wow. I guess so. I already knew the story wasn't anything new, but to put this anywhere near Casablanca is just...crazy talk. Just leave your brain at the door and watch this fun little movie.Oh, and I almost forgot. This movie sparked my quote of the day at my employment: "How can you get Pamela Lee Anderson and Anna Nicole Smith confused?" asked a coworker after I did just that."How can you NOT get the two confused? Sorry, I meant four," I responded.

I was bored one evening, and hunted through the movies available for free on Comcast On Demand. One was this film, which had intrigued me a bit when it was on originally.It was just barely interesting enough to keep me watching until the end.Yes, as has been said many times, the story is lifted almost directly from Casablanca, and otherwise adjusted to fit the characters from the Dark Horse comic. Many reviewers at the time of the film's release saw it as a ripoff, but to me it read more like an homage.This was pretty much the extent to which director David Hogan made good decisions in this. Lighting apparently meant to be moody ended up only muddling the action. The sound mixing was awful (at least, for TV), and much of Pamela Anderson's dialogue was unintelligible. Any opportunity to flash Pam's breasts was seized upon.At that, the writing is pretty weak too. Maybe it was because of the sound problem, but I was twenty minutes into the film before I was sure that the plot had actually started. How the writers did an homage to "Casablanca" while keeping the plot so paper-thin is amazing.Also, most of the acting seems quite mechanical. Pam was highly criticized over this at the time, but I've seen better from her. For that matter, Victoria Rowell seemed quite one-note as well, and I know she has some serious acting chops from her years on "Diagnosis Murder." Thus, I suspect that the problem was not in the performers but in the director and the script. Only Jack Noseworthy (Charlie), Jennifer Bank (Spike), and to a lesser extent Clint Howard (Schmitz) deliver really good performances.I do give high marks to the stunt department of this film, though; the fight scenes were for the most part nicely choreographed and well performed. Some of the action late in the film failed to deliver in that regard, but that seemed more an editing problem than anything the stunt people would have had to do with.The soundtrack, though not generally my preferred style of music, was also well done and fit the setting and action appropriately.Overall I'd say this movie is worth seeing -- once and only once, provided you aren't actually paying any money for it that you aren't already spending.

15 years after it was made I finally bought this flick and even on Blu Ray, cheap of course. This is one of those flicks that always have got some bad reviews. I can't say anything about the script because I haven't seen the comic. But if I just have a look at the names appearing then you know that this isn't going to be a blockbuster. We have Udo Kier and Steven Railsback in it, for those into horror or exploitation those names are famous. And when I saw the name Rick Bota then I immediately must think of him being directing 3 Hellraisers. The story itself is post-apocalyptic so with those actors and the story we could add it into the grindhouse genre even as it wasn't attempt to be.Naturally the main lead was by Pamela Anderson Lee. Back then she was very hot on all aspects. Just made some nudity shots and a porn flick with her husband and of course Baywatch did the producers add her on the wanted list. But face it, she only in it as a teaser. Every time you see her, the most important things are her fake two penny worth breasts. I even has seen the unrated version and indeed, she goes naked now and then only showing tits and nipples.Did I enjoy it? Just looking towards the story and the actors and the gratuitous nudity I liked it and if it would have been made 20 years earlier or even nowadays (remember Bitch Slap also just made for the boys to watch girlies shooting around and posing) it could have been a bigger success. Naturally it was teared down due Pamela's performance. But Steve did good work as did the rest. But be honest, most flicks based on comics failed to deliver.