Cold Fusion Video Reviews

aka Defender 2000

• Directed by Cirio Santiago
• Written by Frederick Bailey
• Starring
  • Richard Norton
  • Corinne Wahl
  • William Steis
  • Robert Patrick

My wife jinxed me again. Every time she sits down to watch one of my B-movies with me, it turns out to be not just a dud, but a real stinker. And while I appreciate the audience for my MST3K-style patter, I don’t need any more crummy viewing than already crosses my plate! Go to bed, Michele!

No, I don’t blame her entirely; even she cannot change the fact that this movie was directed by Cirio Santiago, who has spent an entire career directing and co-producing movies that were either executive-produced or distributed by Roger Corman. Santiago has also managed to make probably the largest per-capita number of post-holocaust movies, to the point that he is probably to that genre what Todd Sheets is to shot-on-video zombie flicks, or what Albert Pyun is to incoherent sci-fi flicks that somehow involve androids.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, not a one of his movies have been what you could call “good.” Some have been immortalized by the pop-culture cache of their subject matter (TNT Jackson, Hell Hole), and some have ventured as high as the “not too painful” rating (Dune Warriors). But the mass of them are completely forgettable, and of that class, many are best forgotten quickly.

Which brings me to the subject at hand.

To my knowledge, this is the one and only post-apocalyptic action flick set in Alaska. On the other hand, it’s only the presence of a voiceover to begin the proceedings that alerts us to that fact — in all other aspects, this movie looks like the standard Road Warrior descendent, with standard-issue spike’n'grill-covered gas guzzlers in a setting that strongly resembles a gravel quarry. (In one shot, they even show us the big crushing plant in the background.) The voiceover also explains that it’s been one hundred years since the big Nuclear Winter, and oddly enough Alaska has become a barren, sun-scorched wilderness. There’s also a fascist outfit (isn’t there always?) called the Ownership which is taking everything over, and there are also rebels.

You now know as much as I did as the movie started. However, you’re going to benefit from my experience, since much of what follows is what I pieced together in trying to get the movie to make sense. You get the coherent version; I did not.

See, there’s this battle going on between two armies — one more-often-than-not dressed in camo fatigues, the other more-often-than-not dressed in black leather, biker accoutrements, and black spray-painted football pads. Richard Norton, who’s given top billing, is on the black-clad side; naturally, I assumed that since he was the hero, the black team was the rebels. Alas, no; after watching five minutes of the worst shooting in the world (apparently, a century after the end of civilization as we know it, there are still enough bullets for everyone to have a machinegun and fire it indiscriminately without hitting anything or anyone), I managed to figure out that the black team was actually the Ownership, and the rebels were counterintuitively dressed like a paramilitary group.

By the way, Norton’s character is named “Slade.” I’m telling you this now, even though I was only able to confirm it after watching two-thirds of the movie. Other characters are identified just as sparingly — as are all other plot points. Basically, anything other than what was spelled out in the voiceover is left unexplained, so tough luck. Part of the problem is the lousy sound quality; dialogue kept dropping in volume, leaving me with entire scenes of whispering character. That’s especially depressing in that none of it was location sound; it was all re-recorded later, as evidenced by the fact that lips don’t match dialogue (though everyone does seem to be speaking English).

Despite his magical inexhaustible six-gun, Slade is captured as the rebels win the battle, and carted off to rebel headquarters for questioning or something. (All they actually do is tie him to a rusting car and taunt him.) After twelve hours of this, he breaks his rops and escapes in one of those post-apoc cars; two other similar vehicles give chase, but after a long and boring pursuit, finally give up as if they’ve just lost interest.

Meanwhile, another Ownership officer (his name is Lawton — again, giving you what I didn’t get myself) reports to the Ownership’s grand pooh-bah (named MacLaine — see above) that Slade died in battle. Lawton’s got a scruffy beard and a hat like the biker from The Village People; he’s obviously treacherous.

And meanwhile yet, a group of bandits led by a young Robert Patrick in a Confederate soldier’s cap (his name is Deke, and you know the drill by now) rendez-vouses with spandex-clad Karen (Corinne Wahl, and I honestly didn’t know this character’s name until the closing credits). No, it’s not just to enjoy the sight of her voluminous bust leaning out of her black tank top or admire the results of the free world’s last stash of hairspray; Karen is there to trade gascans for bazooka rockets, one for one. The bandits want to change the deal, and Karen has to hold a knife to a bandit’s throat to get the others to comply. Leaving with both the gas and the rockets, she’s chased by the bandits for yet another long sequence, until she blows up the car and escapes into the cliffs. There she just happens to run into Slade, who helps her disperse the baddies and then promptly collapses into her arms, thanks to his injuries.

She takes him back to her compound in his stolen car, where her father Dixon (and guess how long it took me to learn his name) has created your standard-issue nice society, where industry and thrift still survive. There she nurses him back to health, and lets him see their secret project: A big-ass gun! (According to the back of the box, this is the “Equalizer 2000″ of the title, though they never call it such. On the other hand, is that surprising?) Yup, their solution to the fact that radiation has wiped out the “Aiming Gene” in humans is to make a bigger gun. How brilliant. In this case, it’s a rifle with six (!!) barrels in an odd arrangement guaranteed to break the arm of the user with recoil here in the Real World. On the other hand, none of the other weapons used so far have exhibited recoil, so there’s no reason to hold this one to a higher standard. It’s sort of like in a high-school physics class, where you work all your problems while ignoring the effects of wind resistance.

Meanwhile, the dastardly Lawton captures Deke and his bandits and drafts them into the Ownership. See, they know that Slade has fallen in with Karen, and so they figure these guys can help track them down, since Lawton’s hot to kill Slade. Why? I dunno. There may have been some treachery involved in that big battle that began the movie; I was too busy trying to figure out which side everyone was on.

Oh, and at the same time, Lawton is ordering raids on the “Mountain People.” Of course, we only hear that label applied to them in the last ten minutes of the movie. (WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS SCRIPT? IS IT SO HARD TO TELL THE AUDIENCE WHO AND WHAT THEY’RE LOOKING AT?) As faras I could tell, they were Neo-Indians — except apparently the casting director didn’t know whether to cast Native Americans or Asians, so he mixed them, and then the costume designer followed suit. In any event, these people seem to have been spared the loss of the aiming gene, as they with their bows and arrows whup mighty ass on an Ownership unit. They send a single survivor back to tell Lawton to keep out of their back yards; Lawton responds in pointlessly nefarious fashion by flame-throwering said survivor. (And even though the survivor arrives on the scene wearinga black T-shirt, as soon as the flamethrower is turned onto him, he miraculously is wearing a big bulky black sweater!)

Despite all the crap the Ownership’s dishing out, Dixon refuses to join the rebels in their war (as do the Mountain People a few scenes later). No, he’d rather sit on his hands until the Ownership shows up for a rumble, which they do promptly. But they have their secret weapon, because Slade has finished the big-ass gun for them, and almost single-handedly he holds off the entire army. Bullets fly! Explosions explode (causing stuntment a full dozen feet away to jump into the air)! Very few people get hit! Dixon’s people all escape, and Slade and Karen manage to cut off the Ownership army by blowing up a model tunnel — but Deke manages to get the drop on him, and scampers off with both Karen and the gun!

It doesn’t take long for Slade to catch up and open another can of whupass to rescue Karen, but not before Lawton recovers the gun from Deke. Well, one out of two ain’t bad, especially when Karen is apparently the last attractive woman left alive in post-holocaust Alaska. Lawton takes the gun back to the Ownership stronghold and blows away their imperious leader, thus becoming the head of the Ownership! Whee! All thanks to this gun! Boy, howcum no one else ever thought to put six barrels on a single weapon in the hundred years since things went south?

Finally, Dixon’s people plan an attack with the rebels on the stronghold. Slade leaves, though, because… Hell, I dunno. Because he can’t fire on his old comrades? No, he’s already done that in spades. I dunno. It’s not like it really matters, because as soon as the attack starts, he shows up and outfights everybody on both sides (including the Mountain People, who show up at the last minute to save the day — like you didn’t see that coming). Blah blah blah, Slade gets the gun back, they win over the Ownership… and then Slade, apparently disgusted with all the bloodshed (not to mention the wasted bullets), bangs the gun against a rock and destroys it. That’s all — one hard hit, and the six barrels fall apart like so much kindling. It’s a good thing that all of this takes place in the No-Recoil Universe, or that thing would have blown up and taken Slade’s hands off the first time he pulled the trigger. Anyway, he throws the pieces into the fire, and everyone else follows suit with their weapons (it’s a good thing the Mountain People have wooden weapons, because a big pile of metal doesn’t burn too well). Then Slade heads off into the sunset.

Blech.

You know, there’s a certain mystique to the resurrected chivalry of the standard post-apocalyptic scenario, but you’ve got to squint really hard to see it in the excessively-crappy movies that comprise the genre. Instead, it’s movies like this that make me hope that, when the Big One drops, I’m taken out in the first wave, rather than contribute my genes to as pointless and lackluster an existence as we’ve been watching for the last ninety minutes — a cheap, stupid version of proto-civilization where no one’s smart enough to stop living in the gravel quarry.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 25 (including 6 stuntmen in flame suits)
• breasts: 2
• explosions: 85
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0