aka Lunarcop
- Directed by Boaz Davidson
- Written by Terrance Pare
- Starring
- Michael Pare
- Billy Drago
- Walker Brandt
- Robin Smith
There’s should be some kind of award for actually making an enjoyable post-apoc adventure. Given that most entries into the genre are inexplicably disagreeable, Solar Force would definitely have a shot at the title, at least a runner-up bouquet. Not that it’s a “good” movie, by any currently-accepted definition of the word, but it is enjoyable in a brainless way.
Begin vintage early ‘80s electronic score…
In the future, 27 years after The Big Burn has made the entire earth look like Southern Utah (or in this case Namibia – just like Southern Utah but cheaper), the only bastion of advanced civilization is the advanced-but-fascist and really fake-looking lunar colony, where everyone dresses in costumes left over from The Starlost. (Someone actually took credit for being Production Designer — talk about a sinecure.) We find out in an “As you all know…” speech that lunar scientists have created a chemical device which will reseed the clouds and start rain falling on earth again. But extremists on the moon attack the lab (using the wimpiest grenades known to man — I guess you can’t get too explosive when decompression is a constant threat) and smuggle this device, the Amarith, to the “savages” on earth. The lunar solution? Send one lunarcop, Joe Brody (Michael Pare), to earth to recover the Amarinth before the savages can set it off. Yup; one man on a motorcycle with a shotgun versus an entire planet – sounds like a fair fight to me.
Once there, Brody rescues the beautiful Thora (Walker Brandt) from a band of generic post-apoc marauders, led by Kay (Billy Drago). He is invited back to her village, a communal shantytown where everyone helps with the farming and nobody eats meat, and where apparently they have water to waste on luxuriously long showers and growing watermelons. He becomes the village’s defender against Kay and his “Rough Boys,” but is torn between his mission and his newfound home. Ah, the ethical dilemmas of law enforcement…
Here’s something I’ve never understood. If gasoline is available, how come the only people who ever have it are motorcycle-riding thugs? For that matter, if interior lighting also works (as evidenced late in the movie) and even some electronics, what exactly did the Big Burn wipe out aside from people? Did society collapse because of the lack of telecommunications?
Here’s another no-brainer. Kay tells his shit-for-brains lieutenant, Milo, that if he doesn’t bring back the girl Kay’ll punish him real nasty. Milo attacks the village and fails to get the girl. Now, how many of you would immediately ride back to Kay, stand within arm’s length, and announce loudly that you didn’t get the girl?
So the Rough Boys attack en masse, but the villagers are ready for them. Big fight – lots of casualties on both sides. The Rough Boys are finally driven out, and the villagers start cheering like it’s Cinco de Mayo. Hello? Half your populace just got wiped out – a sigh of relief may be in order, but leave the bump-and-grind partying until after you’ve buried your dead.
And then the whole other half of the plot kicks in in the last twenty minutes, complete with an android whose damaged face looks like a zombie from City of the Walking Dead.
You know, I’m actually glad that so many bad post-apoc movies have been made. We should watch and learn from them, so that when the Big One really drops, we’ll know how and how not to run our lives in the radioactive wasteland. Some simple rules I’ve come up with after one viewing:
Rule #1: If you’re going to shout, “Leave him alone!”, you’d better have some firepower to back your mouth up.
Rule #2: Never let a bad guy swearing revenge simply walk away.
Rule #3: Make your walls higher than the surrounding rocks.
Rule #4: If you want to be able to shoot from the tops of your walls, add some crenellations so the enemy doesn’t pick you off like sitting ducks.
Some other random observations:
How can you sing “ring around the rosie” when you’re all skipping in a straight line?
There are some movies where Home Alone funny business just doesn’t work. This is one of them. (In fact, there are many movies where it doesn’t work, including the Home Alone movies.)
In addition to the bouquet, this flick also gets the no-prize for the least convincing throat-cutting of all time.
While Billy Drago is always unsettling and mean, I’ve always had a problem with the proposition that he could actually fight worth a damn. Seems like one good punch and he’d dry up and blow away.
How do you tell the smart guy in the village? He’s the one wearing glasses, duh.
The musical transitions sucked worse than the music itself, shifting from soft African melodies to ominous electro-chords so abruptly you’d think you were watching the edited-for-TV version.
In the final evaluation, it’s a pretty fun B-movie – but what the hell did the title have to do with anything? I’ll grant you that the original title, Lunarcop, lacked oomph – but Solar Force (or, as the opening credits put it, SolarFORCE)? Was there anything “solar” about this movie? Did anyone even mention the sun once? Couldn’t they have gone for a compromise – like Lunar Force?
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 57
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 40
- ominous thunderstorms: 0
- dream sequences: 0
- homages to Raiders of the Lost Ark: 2
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 1
- Walker Brandt, “Thora,” was on an episode of TNG
