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The New Barbarians
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Cited as one of Turbo Kid's biggest influences, it's supposed to be an Italian Road Warrior knock-off. And once again, given that poster, how can I not?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Well, the inspiration is certainly obvious. Turbo Kid borrows a lot from The New Barbarians.
Despite being an obvious Mad Max knock-off, or perhaps BECAUSE it's an obvious Mad Max knock-off, The New Barbarians somehow manages to be better than both Turbo Kid and Death Race 2000 when it comes to it's action.
Turbo Kid suffered from an oversaturation of violence that was over-the-top, always gruesome, and always bloody. Lots of CG blood.
Death Race 2000 suffered from most of it's violence being fake to an almost cartoonish degree. Lots of really obviously prop blood.
The New Barbarians restrains itself to realism by barely using any blood, never being overly graphic in it's depiction of gruesome deaths, and smartly limiting it's gruesome deaths in the same way Fury Road does so when one actually does pop up, you're not already desensitized to it and expecting it.
The New Barbarians
Action / Italian / 1983
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
Cited as one of Turbo Kid's biggest influences, it's supposed to be an Italian Road Warrior knock-off. And once again, given that poster, how can I not?
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Well, the inspiration is certainly obvious. Turbo Kid borrows a lot from The New Barbarians.
Despite being an obvious Mad Max knock-off, or perhaps BECAUSE it's an obvious Mad Max knock-off, The New Barbarians somehow manages to be better than both Turbo Kid and Death Race 2000 when it comes to it's action.
Turbo Kid suffered from an oversaturation of violence that was over-the-top, always gruesome, and always bloody. Lots of CG blood.
Death Race 2000 suffered from most of it's violence being fake to an almost cartoonish degree. Lots of really obviously prop blood.
The New Barbarians restrains itself to realism by barely using any blood, never being overly graphic in it's depiction of gruesome deaths, and smartly limiting it's gruesome deaths in the same way Fury Road does so when one actually does pop up, you're not already desensitized to it and expecting it.
The action is easily the best thing the movie has going for it though, so as much as will argue that it's a better movie than both Turbo Kid and Death Race 2000 as a whole, it has neither the nostalgic charm or comedic edge of those movies.
I don't think it really needs them though, as I said Death Race 2000's attempts at humor don't really work and Turbo Kid's graphic bloody violence ruins it's more childish ambitions. That said, The New Barbarians doesn't exactly offer anything else in exchange.
The story is so stock that the bad guy's motivations can be basically explained away as "they're godless homosexuals who love death".
At least I THINK that's what I'm supposed to be getting out of this.
I won't go into why the whole lack-of-women thing doesn't make sense here, but I will say that a homoerotic undercurrent becomes a homoerotic OVERCURRENT by the end of the movie.
After the barbarians (all men) are offhandedly called queers, the villain anally rapes the protagonist and the protagonist gets back at him by literally shoving a drill up his ass, which somehow causes him to explode.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF- brilliant.
I don't think it really needs them though, as I said Death Race 2000's attempts at humor don't really work and Turbo Kid's graphic bloody violence ruins it's more childish ambitions. That said, The New Barbarians doesn't exactly offer anything else in exchange.
The story is so stock that the bad guy's motivations can be basically explained away as "they're godless homosexuals who love death".
At least I THINK that's what I'm supposed to be getting out of this.
I won't go into why the whole lack-of-women thing doesn't make sense here, but I will say that a homoerotic undercurrent becomes a homoerotic OVERCURRENT by the end of the movie.
After the barbarians (all men) are offhandedly called queers, the villain anally rapes the protagonist and the protagonist gets back at him by literally shoving a drill up his ass, which somehow causes him to explode.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF- brilliant.
Final Verdict: [Meh...]