|
Movie Review - World Gone Wild
|
|
|
|
|
(What this rating means)
|
|
| |
|
| Director: |
Lee H. Katzin |
| Starring: |
Michael Paré, Bruce Dern, and Adam Ant |
| Rated: |
R (for language, violence, and sexual situations) |
| Length: |
95 minutes |
| Genre: |
Bad Movie/Action |
| Website: |
Not quite. |
|
PLOT
|
The year is 2087, and water is very scarce on the nuclear-ravaged wasteland that is Earth. There is one
outpost - Lost Wells - that has survived and still has water. However, an evil cult wants to take over
their water supply. Will they do it? Or will Bruce Dern, Michael Paré, and their merry band of mercs be
able to thwart their attempts and somehow tame a ... WORLD GONE WILD???? One messed up cheesy movie ensues.
|
|
JOHNNY'S TAKE
|
Have you ever found yourself alone in your room, just totally jammin' to Chequered Past's
"World Gone Wild"? Yeah, me neither. If you're like me, then you've never even heard of
Chequered Past or the song. But if you're one of the three people on earth (i.e. a band member
of Chequered Past) who knows what I'm talking about, then you might actually enjoy this movie for
about three minutes. However, you're on your own for the other 92.
Chequered Past, huh? You know that any band that replaces a "ck" with a "qu" in a word like that
has just GOT to be cool! THEY'RE LIVING ON THE EDGE WITH THEIR ROCK AND ROLL AND THEY WON'T CONFORM
TO SOCIETY'S RULES AND STANDARDS! That's right people; they especially won't be inhibited by any stupid
grammatical rules. You know why? Because they're living in a WORLD GONE WILD! DAIR NAIR NAIR NAIR DAIR
NAIR NAIR NAIR ... NAIR NAIR!
In case you haven't figured it out, "World Gone Wild" is indeed the title of this movie's theme song.
It's the type of song that makes you stop and ask, "All right, which 80s hair band did this? And of what single
was it the b-side?" And the movie? Well, it's the type that makes you stop and ask, "All right, whose
idea was this and of whom does he have controversial photos?"
It's 2087, and there's some sort of "final war" going on. It supposedly hasn't rained in 50 years. A wide
variety of weird characters battle over the scarce supply of water that is left. Sound interesting? If so,
then apparently sound can be just as deceiving as looks.
What we've got here is basically a hodge-podge of bad special effects, cheesy outfits (some black dude
wears blue tights and chain mail, niiiiice), horrible sound effects (I've heard better bullet sounds on my
Atari 2600), and random weird stuff. If you're wondering what I define as "random weird stuff," well, at some
sort of rave there's a guy in the crowd wearing a leather jacket and panties. There's no further explanation,
and we never see the guy again. I have no idea what that was about, and I don't care to explore the issue.
This was either a Village People concert or a Richard Simmons rally.
Of course, there are the required horrible one-liners such as, "Hey, that's a nice piece of wife." Or how
about the exchange between Michael Paré's character (George Landon) and another character: "George, he's a
cannibal." "Nobody's perfect." I had that same exact conversation in high school, but nobody listened to
me. So what happened? The new kid in school, who yes, turned out to be a cannibal, enjoyed four years of
ostracism just because no one wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even my little quip of how we were
living in a "world gone wild" didn't do much to open new doors for the kid. Ah well, I tried.
The most telling line of all is when Michael Paré says, "I'm George Landon, I can't read." That really
explains it all, doesn't it? Folks, this is more than just a character in a movie spitting out a badly
scripted line. This is Michael Paré admitting to the world that *he* can't read. He obviously couldn't
read the script (which sadly has become too routine), and that's why he agreed to star in this movie,
which I like to refer to as "Michael Paré Career Killer #4." Surely if he knew he was going to be
forced to wear leather pants, a sleeveless shirt, and some sort of Michael Jackson jacket then he
would've refused, right?
This was clearly a cry for help. "Please, somebody, anybody, teach me how to read! I *want* to be able
to read the scripts handed to me so I'll know what to refuse!" It brings me no joy to report that 16 years
later his illiteracy is still apparently going strong.
I'd be remiss if I didn't fill you in on one of the highlights of the movie. It's just one of those things
that illustrates how much tender loving care can go into the production of a movie. One morning Paré's face
is clean-shaven, but later THAT SAME NIGHT he's sportin' some monstrous pork chop sideburns. We had to
rewind the movie to confirm that he was previously clean-shaven, and sure enough, there were no sideburns in
sight. It's one of the finest pieces of editing I've ever seen ... by an apparent 2-year-old.
But there is good news for all four Adam Ant fans that still exist! You will be happy to know that he is the
main bad guy. He struts around in a ridiculous white outfit and constantly has a stupid-looking pair of goggles
perched atop his head.
Cool, thanks for the info, Johnny! So he does a good job, huh?
Oh, I didn't say he did a good job. But he is *in* the movie. In a desperate attempt to give him some
personality he reads to his cult from "The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Manson." This lets us know that he's
reeeeeeeeeal baaaaaaad and he is to be HATED WITH A PASSION! In a great twist of irony, there is a scene
in the movie (and maybe this is only in my limited Special Edition Director's Cut) where the video box of
"World Gone Wild" is actually reading from "The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Manson." Read the fourth sentence
of this paragraph if you're not good with subtlety.
|
|
MAMA'S APPROVAL
|
The movie has its fair share of profanity and scantily clad people. This isn't exactly a movie I'd pop in
and enjoy with the whole family. Actually, this isn't a movie that I'd "enjoy" with anybody.
|
|
TRAILER COMPARISON
|
I'm as shocked as anybody, but there's actually a trailer for this thing. The trailer does a good job
of showing you how cheesy the movie is and how poor the production values are, and it does nothing to
trick (oops, make that "triqu") you into seeing the movie, but it's only about a minute long and doesn't
prepare you for just how bad it is.
|
|
THE GIST
|
"World Gone Wild" does have its share of weird moments that definitely deserve to be made fun of, but overall
it's just too boring to fall in the "so bad it's good" category. However, if a cannibal playing air guitar on
his gun while draped in an American flag sounds like your suit of armor then have at it. Otherwise, there are
much "better" bad movies to waste your time with. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go get DEQUED out in
leather pants and a sleeveless shirt, and I'm gonna rock out to some Chequered Past. I'm sorry, that
should be ROQU out!
|
|
