Day 229: "You've been roaming the wastelands, fighting half-men, no doubt."

It's difficult for me to believe what an impact the Mad Max series of movies had.  Almost every dystopian future in the 80's was either a derivative of Blade Runner or, more often than not, Mad Max.  Take today's movie for example, Steel Dawn.  Combine a whole lot of The Road Warrior, alter the gas shortage to a water shortage, add the awfully staged swordfights of Conan the Destroyer, mix in a pinch of Shane (not enough to make this palatable), and you have Steel Dawn.  A lone swordsman travels the wasteland, seeing his teacher killed (for no apparent reason) he goes to the "town" where said teacher was being employed as a peacekeeper.  Through the chain of events, Nomad (yep, that's our hero's name) attracts violence on a colossal scale, makes friends with Hulk Hogan (not really, but damn, he's a close match), and eventually wipes out the band of marauders that have taken over the town, simultaneously avenging his teacher.  This is a really bad, cheesy movie that takes itself way too seriously.  Having been made in the 80's, the hairstyles are quite a sight to behold, even if they are no more than bad wigs.

Patrick Swayze plays Nomad in such a wooden stiff fashion, that you'd swear he was on some heavy sedation.  I'm not a Swayze fan, but he's done much better than this (Red Dawn being a good example of that).  Brion James, who is one of my favorite actors of the time, is the Hogan look-alike, Tark.  The only other actors I recognized here were Anthony Zerbe, as evil as ever playing the aptly named Damnil, and a really young Arnold Vosloo as a disposable thug.

The sword work, both fighting and hardware are abysmal, the acting terrible, and the story; utter crap.  A clue as to how bad this was going to be was the opening scene: Swayze meditating STANDING ON HIS HEAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT.  Yep, that kind of bad.  It was like watching a train wreck, I just couldn't pull my eyes away long enough to change the channel.  Even the score sounds exactly like Mad Max, only worse.  Just like the movie.  3.5/10

See you tomorrow, and GO WATCH A MOVIE!!