America 3000 (1986) User Reviews

Surprise

[CyberShaggy · 5/10 · 20 August 2009]

This movie is so cheesy that for a very B Grade Post Apocalyptic movie it is actually worth watching. Just grab the pop corn, put the brain in neutral, press play and watch.

You'll have to see past the low budget props, I think they borrowed a lot from the set of Planet of the Apes, and maybe 1,000,000 years BC, and some of the computers are very 1980's, but then Star Trek the original series was supposed to be 22nd century, these computers blow those away.

And women in skimpy costumes made from animal skin always make a movie worth watching for guys. The dialog leaves a lot to be desired, but like I said, just put the brain in neutral and be entertained.

THE WORLD WAS WOGGOS

[nogodnomasters · 5/10 · 14 February 2019]

This is a bad film whose appeal is to be campy and cheesy. It is available on DVD multi-packs with similar style of films. The US is divided into male and female factions. Women take men prisoner and use them as slaves and as "breeders" while men haven't mastered taking women prisoner. Vena (Laurene Landon) is the ruler of the Frisco group near Denver, where the guys hang out at Camp Reagan. A ruler from Kansas is in town to make trouble for Vena. Eventually we have our abbreviated "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" scene, which was perhaps the highlight of the film as a boom box with 900 year old batteries still works. Eat your heart out SLEEPER.

Guide: use of effin' for a swear word. brie heavily clothed sex. No nudity. Women still with big hair 80's hair. Some things just never go out of style.

A fairly intelligent stupid movie.

[gridoon · 5/10 · 24 January 2003]

I don't know exactly what to make of this. It's pretty obvious that you're not supposed to take it seriously, yet for a comedy it has far too much mayhem and not enough laughs. It's all quite stupid, really, and you might be tempted to shut it off even before the opening credits have finished rolling. But it has at least one charming sequence (when the female leader discovers for the first time what a "man" is), and some of the final scenes, showing the aftermath of a devastating battle, with fields littered with corpses, have a surprising impact. Be warned, however, that the movie DOES feature a shaggy mutant called "Aargh The Awful"! (**)

Great post-apocalyptic shenanigans!

[Chuckles-12 · 7 March 2002]

America 3000 is quite possibly the pinnacle of achievement in the post-apocalyptic genre. Yeah, right.

But, it's a silly film from a silly genre, so we can't be judgemental now, can we?

I especially liked the writers/producers/whoever the hell dreamed up the lousy script's attempts at futuristic 'slang' with words like "Nagy" and "Cold/Hard" meaning strange things.

See this movie. You will laugh.

And be sure to respect the "Prez-ee-dent", kids.

dumb and silly - I almost loved it

[Metal-9 · 5/10 · 30 December 1999]

This movie really is dumb and silly but i still enyojed it. The story about the women taking over the power after the third world war is rather awful. The names on all the charachters are really laughable. For example Korvis. Korvis in my language (swedish) mean that a person looks like a sausage. Korvis is not like a ordinary american name too I guess. One strange is that all women in the movie looks like models except for one old woman. At the end of the movie their are a great battle between the frollos (women) and the plugarts (men). You see both a lot of women and men die and beaten up. From the beginning there was ecually many women as men but in the end it remains five men but around 20-30 women, strange. I gave the movie a 5 out of 10 because it's really dumb and silly but at the same time really good because of its cheesyiness. If you like silly movie go rent this one - we did.

Crappy beyond words.....

[Space_Lord · 3/10 · 15 February 2005]

Hi folks! This has to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. And I like bad movies!! It's just that in this one there is less of the 'funny' bad and more of the 'bad' bad! I struggle to comprehend how movies like this get made. Who pays for this crap to get produced and thinks they will make money? Anyway on to the film itself, which is set in a post - apocalyptic USA, where men and women live a separate warring tribes. The women initially have the upper hand, keeping men as slaves for various functions: Machos - manual labour, Toys - uhhhh, toys, and Seeders (where the guy dresses up in a burqa and 'seeds' a tied up woman for the purposes of reproduction. Ooohhh, kinky!) The square jawed, blonde haired leader of the men (Chuck Wagner - AUTOMAN!!! How cool was that show?) stumbles across a secret that could turn the tide in the men's favour, or unite them with the women.

Corny sequences that I enjoyed in this film: The leader riding out dressed in his sparkly gold radiation suit (What???) blaring cheesy hair band metal from his 900 year old boom box. Weird! The leader of the men and the women's tiara (queen) 'rediscovering' sexual intercourse, breathing and fumbling over each other.

Some great dialogue: When the leader discovers the bunker and receives a message intended for the president, the message states: "No one asked for this war, but GODDAMN it Mr President, we've won it! Caught the GODDAMN Russkies with their pants down!!!" When he is showing the women's leader around and she reaches for the control panel, he says in a cheesy tone: "Careful!! Don't wanna nuke the world!" Apart from these brief and all too infrequent 'highlights', the rest of the film is an absolute writeoff, crappy and boring beyond belief.

Future disaster in the past...

[quamp · 1/10 · 13 November 2000]

This movie was dumb, banal, and trite. That's about the best things I can say about it. The whole plot revolves around life after a nuclear war in which the men fight the women. The narrator is annoying, and everyone has those awful mid-1980's haircuts. Another bad call: one scene features a sign which reads "The Rolling Stones Farewell tour 1989." Legend has it that this movie was going to be in season 11 of MST3K. Even if that's not true, it should have been.

As bad as nobody could imagin

[anderst2 · 1/10 · 23 February 2002]

This movie is terrible, you can't even compare this with a Ed Wood movie, because Ed Wood didn't have money, this did, and Ed Wood didn't know what he was doing, Here they think they know.

this might contain SPOILERS

This movie tries to be a big blockbuster, it looks like they were trying to make one, but with a cast as terrible as this, nothing can get right. All the women looks like they're from playboy, with tons of hairspray and makeup, and acting like s***, the men ain't any better. But as you watch the movie you can see the movie trying to get better, the makers trow in a (clearly a Chewbacca ripoff) troll like character, and you'll laugh your ass off.

This movie ripsoff "Planet of the Apes" (1968) big time, exspecially with the nuclear sone, and finding thing from the past. Everything you see in here is made with the best intentions, but without talent.

The terrible editing of the picture makes the action scenes look stupid, at the end battle, look for the guy who is going to jump on a female rider, the horse is miles away before he jumps, and suddenly he hits her.

I give this as a movie 1/10, but you'll laugh all the time, and as a turky this is a 10/10. This is so bad it don't qualify for the Razzie Awards.

Bad enough that I watched the whole thing

[Carol_in_Chicago · 1/10 · 18 May 2013]

Awful - but fun. I am still chuckling. The boom box that (a) still had working batteries, and (b) had a radio signal to receive after 900 years, was priceless. I remind you all that makeup, shampoo, and high heels seem to have survived almost every Sci-Fi disaster ever filmed. This phenomenon is not unique to the worst of the worst.

In fact, it seems to me that the creators intentionally harvested the most obvious dystopian film clichés, and then pushed each of them to their most absurd extreme. It's the future. Our leaders were short-sighted and disaster ensued. Mankind manages to survive and restart its social evolution, but blunders. A hero emerges with vision and corrects the blunder. I could probably use this film as an outline for my first SF novel if I wanted to.

Priceless.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 17 August 2013]

This totally wacky post-apocalypse comedy lets the viewer know right away NOT to take it seriously, and it provides a lot of good-natured humour in what is basically a tale of war between the sexes. Feisty Amazonian babes rule the planet in the 31st century, keeping some men as slaves and others as "seeders", or sperm donors. One of the men is Korvis (studly Chuck Wagner), who stumbles onto some pretty big discoveries when he finds an underground bunker. He encourages his male buddies, including Gruss (William Wallace) to think differently about the roles played by men and women. He also finds out how much fun it is to play prez-ee-dent.

The nutty dialogue is often hysterical; after a while you do pick up what certain words and phrases mean. This dialogue is delivered with the utmost sincerity by a great looking cast of guys and gals. The movie was filmed on location in Israel by those always reliable folk at the Cannon Group. It does lose its momentum, but regains it for an action packed finale. The actors and actresses are dressed sexily but never reveal anything, nor is the violence ever overly bloody. (This *is* rated PG-13.) Writer / director David Engelbach (who'd penned "Death Wish II" a few years previous) is having fun here, and that feeling is infectious. Some of the biggest laughs are delivered by a shaggy Bigfoot like character named Aargh the Awful (played by Steve Malovic); the final freeze frame involves Aargh and it's a howler.

The audience may find themselves in tears, or rolling their eyes, at the abundance of silliness here. It's very much the kind of thing you'd watch with beers and friends. It's also well worth watching for any Laurene Landon fan, as she looks absolutely fantastic as always. Also supplying eye candy are Galyn Gorg ("RoboCop 2") as Lynka and Camilla Sparv ("Downhill Racer") as Reya. Shaike Ophir is endearing as put upon character Lelz.

Accompanied by a quite appropriate cheese ball rock music score by Tony Berg, and effectively lit and photographed by David Gurfinkel, "America 3000" is overall just too hard to resist. It may not be "quality" stuff, but it sure as hell is entertaining.

Seven out of 10.

Feminist Fantasy

[cat-84474 · 3/10 · 8 January 2020]

I was in this movie. Can't say this one is an intellectual challenge, but it was fun to do. It's a bit silly, with bad acting, but those girls go! I think this movie must have been a tax shelter for a relative of the producers.

It is fun, on several levels, and speaks to the excesses of the 80's.

Reagan-Era postapocalyptic big-hair misfeminist gem

[blackfordlaw · 8/10 · 18 January 2007]

This is perhaps my favorite bad movie of all time. Taste is out the window as rival tribes of overcoiffed women vie for the title of "Tiara." Men have been relegated to a few carefully restricted roles, like "seeder," and everyone speaks a highly idiomatic -- nay idiotic -- dialect. In this dialect, something that is really good is said to be "hot plastic" and all agreements are sealed by intoning "solemn swear." But one day a bright -- or rather, brighter -- male breaks out of his role and tries to become something more. Havoc ensues, language is mangled, "hot rocks" are hurled, and more need not be said. I just wish someone would release it on DVD. Take a chance -- this one is out there. Way out.

Hilarious!

[The_Inverted_Necroyeti · 7/10 · 26 July 2010]

I won't write again what has been written by other reviewers, other than this is a very silly film, stuck somewhere between the uninentionally bad and the tongue in cheek. Every time I saw the radioactive mutant (a small-scale bigfoot that seemingly loves 80s rock music) I laughed my head off, and generally struggled to keep my face straight for an hour and a half. The acting, costumes, make-up, music contribute, to various extents, to the high level of silliness throughout the film. This is well-worth watching after a few drinks/jays. For those who like this, check out The Ice Pirates or Hell Comes to Frogtown. Both are in a similar vein, but not as as bad as America 3000.

If this is the future, I'm gonna live in the past.

[icehole4 · 1/10 · 31 December 1999]

This movie is just plain pitiful. The people in it are all trying to do stuff that just doesn't work. After a nuclear war, men and women fight each other. Supposedly this has gone on for several hundred years. That in and of itself doesn't make sense.

Avoid this film. It's the kind of film that would appear on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Review by actor in the film

[darthdevo2000 · 26 February 2004]

While America 3000 MAY be one of the ALLTIME grade-Z movies, a great deal of comments made by the other person to review this film are wrong. First off, the hairstyles. Since the film takes place 900 years AFTER World War III, and in the radioactive wild of Colorado, how could anybody be "suffering from "bad '80's style haircuts?" Moron. The hair is typical of a bunch of people stuck in the wild, with the intelligence of a lower primate with no vanity. Just wild, unkenmpt hair. Specifically, mine. I played Young Korvis, (the good looking one.) The film is narrated by Mr. William Wallace, who plays my grown up sidekick, Gruss. It could have been worse. Chuck Wagner of TV's "AutoMan" (who's a GREAT guy, if you ever get a chance to meet him) could've narrated, which would have been a mistake. While he has physical presence, vocally, he may be lacking. And this is odd, considering the amount of stage he's done before and since this film. Compared to the last Mad Max film, this movie is downright inspirational, even if filmed on a 3 million dollar budget. The Director (David Englebach) went on to develop "Over the Top" with Sly Stallone. Yeah, I barfed too, but it wasn't half bad. Last comment (since this is hardly a review, but more of a defense of a terrible flick..) This movie never made it to MST3K....I checked. What am I doing now? I shoot music videos for up and coming rock bands. If you're in the Los Angeles Area Friday, march 5 2004, come to Johnny Foxx's, and see Flying Venus, the hottest group from Northern California destined to become the next big thing. That's what us grade Z actors are doing now. And the winner is.............

Big Hair, Angry Women Warriors, Hapless Men, Bigfoot

[bermuda-12332 · 1/10 · 2 February 2019]

Objectionable to just two groups of possible viewers: "women" and "men". The entire (very low) budget was obviously spent on several pallets of Aqua Net hairspray. The entire movie could have been filmed in your backyard and basement (no, really -- try it). The annoying and unnecessary "future dialog" makes you look forward to more modern exposition -- until that in fact shows up in the form of high school quality narration.

The random placement of the "Rolling Stones Farewell Tour 1989" banner (in a 1986 film) must have seemed like a hoot at the time. Little did they know that the future held continuous farewell tours 30 years into the real future. A "Rolling Stones Farewell Tour 2019" would have been funnier (and we are still counting).

The best part is the final freeze frame, anticipating the iconic "Say Anything" meme by three years. The meme is "one of the most culturally recognizable scenes in American movie history" and you saw it here first.

Silly 80's post-apocalypse movie.

[Java_Joe · 5/10 · 8 June 2019]

This movie was cold woggos negi hot plastic. A seeder plugot escapes from a group of thralls and leads a rebellion. Of course that doesn't mean anything to somebody that hasn't seen the movie because they attempted to create their own kind of slang like Anthony Burgess did in "A Clockwork Orange". Except here, they just kinda replaced a couple words and made you figure it out later.

For the uninitiated "woggos" means crazy. Negi means no or not or something along those lines. Hot plastic is good. A plugot is a man. A thrall is a woman. And a seeder is a man who's only job is to mate with the women all of whom still have big 80's type hair. So we know that at least in the future after the nuclear apocalypse hairspray and styling gel will still be around.

The movie itself is rather silly in a B-movie kind of way but it doesn't bring much of anything new to this genre.

It's an oldie

[WWmoviejunkie · 5/10 · 24 November 2018]

Saw this film on a vhs tape a loong time back . I would've given it 10 stars then , since it was a mega hit with me ( as a 7 year old )

America 3000 (1986)

[lfdewolfe · 3/10 · 30 August 2020]

This movie is quite possibly the blandest movie ever put to film. This movie has no style, sometimes it's cheesy and sometimes it's serious, and because of that I don't know weather to be laughing because it's funny or laughing because of how bad it looks. The background in this movie is just desert and all the sets look metal shacks giving this movie a tone of... well, bland. The acting is bland, the story about the men and woman learning to get along is bland, the sets are bland, and the tone can't decide on what it wants to be. I'd anything this movie does have some good parts near the end when the final battle takes place. Not a horrible movie, but far from good.

awful

[eumel-123 · 1/10 · 25 March 2008]

!!!Warning: Consumption of the whole film will be deadly: Warning!!! Please, don't recognize more than a few minutes of this celluloid. !!!Warning: Consumption of the whole film will be deadly: Warning!!! This means only, that your brain will hurt. !!!Warning: Consumption of the whole film will be deadly: Warning!!! But more than a few minutes is equally to listen to a vogon's poem. !!!Warning: Consumption of the whole film will be deadly: Warning!!! So beware of too much consumption. !!!Warning: Consumption of the whole film will be deadly: Warning!!! It could be deadly. !!!Warning: Consumption of the whole film will be deadly: Warning!!!

An unrateable film that is too bad and too fun to not enjoy

[siderite · 6/10 · 21 April 2021]

At the surface this is a really low budget film that is impossibly politically incorrect nowadays about a post apocalyptic war between men and women. And there's almost nothing under that surface!

One could say that the script is a lot better than the movie, though. The language that has changed hilariously since the big war, the names of the characters, the concept of a gender war where women think they are smart and men believe they are strong and which ends in women almost defeating the men through force and the men outsmarting the women, all of this is proof that Engelbach thought lovingly about the story of the film. There are brilliant scenes sprinkled everywhere in the movie. The implementation... agh, not so good.

The acting is not worth mentioning, except for the performance of Sue Giosa, who did the best over the top acting I've ever seen, with perhaps the exception of the fire guitar guy in the new Mad Max. I mean, her role was pretty silly, but she did great with it.

It's impossible not to laugh and enjoy the film. It's naive, it's fun, it has some parts that are completely pointless but really funny (like Aargh) and while I was watching it the second time after decades since the first time, I still remembered scenes from it that had an impact on me when I was a kid. And I usually forget everything I've ever seen!

The best thing about this film, though, it watching it and imagining how one would remake it in this day and age. The film is misogynistic and sarcastic, sometimes really dumb, sometimes surprisingly deep. I would love to see someone try to adapt it for modern audiences! It would be the most talked about movie ever.

Poor horses

[jkspawspa · 1/10 · 12 August 2019]

This was so bad, I almost couldn't turn away. There is no acting or lines. The horses are abused and made to fall over and over. Surprised this didn't get shut down by animal rights activists.

Terrific

[dispet · 8/10 · 3 June 2004]

this film works for me. i know it wont work for everybody, but it is worth a go, and it probably is more enjoyable if you've had a couple of drinks and are in a forgiving mood. this film works for me because it is made with verve, everybody (for better or for worse) appears to have really thrown themselves into this film, and they understand that this is not brain surgery, nor is it gone with the wind. there is barely any plot, but they do not allow this to make the film slow, it moves along and its own good pace until it reaches a totally pointless climax which matches up with the rest of the film and thus completes it. it isnt really a laugh out loud film, more like 80 minutes of smirking. right up there with conan for the top silly loin cloth films.

Hot Scan This Crap

[saint_brett · 1/10 · 29 March 2023]

So, this is what the year 3000 looks like?

It's just a watered-down, lower end, town from 'Highlander.' A bunch of unwashed Neanderthals, who haven't bathed since 2990, are captured and profiled between the haves and have-nots in the meat department while Mahoney from 'Police Academy' narrates the story in the tradition of 'The Wonder Years.' One particular 'Footloose' dong master, Grog, is a blackbelt in inches and must be branded like cattle for quality but he rebels and takes off on Quick Silver.

It looks like where they filmed the castle from 'Evil Dead 2.' The main character in this is "Man." For someone who struggles to read an ABC book for dummies he speaks perfectly good English otherwise.

Was that Cyndi Lauper?

This is a poor man's 'Conan the Barbarian' meets one of those 'Roller Blade Warrior Taken by Force' movies.

What looks like Marshall Applewhite is tattooing children with kinky Greek mythology ink. He gets stabbed in the back at the end and walks 500 miles like a Proclaimer.

Kesha and some other rug headed twit become team leaders after Judith Light is stabbed by Gorg?

Is that Tina Turner from the Thunderdome?

What language are these people speaking? I can't understand one word.

Plugots, Frolls, Nuke Frogs, Blue Gots and Half Roll?

This Veena chick looks like her hair was blown dry by a dropped nuclear bomb. Her head looks like some heavy-duty trees have been parted and destroyed.

I have a confession to make. To anyone who reads my reviews, I'm struggling to keep my head above water when it comes to entertainment today. Nothing flies anymore. All this 80's stuff is pathetic. Great back in the day when you hired it on VHS, but silly today. Nothing makes sense anymore.

I don't know how to properly describe this movie's aim like an expert.

A bunch of futuristic rollerblade women have ditched the skates and are the most feared rulers of the universe. All men are cowards and scavengers who have lost the basic fundamentals of kindergarten teachings.

Raider's pillage other villages camps like it's a 'Road Warrior' rip-off.

Terrible actors feign any rational sense of human understanding.

It's like the beginning of time and not a look into the future.

This movie gives the 80's a bad name.

I must be the only idiot who's watching this in 2023.

The Heaven's Gate nimrod, Applewhite, meets Marty McFly in his radioactive suit from 1955 in an attempt at humor.

If you want funny - what's with the hairband rock music soundtrack to this movie?

Did I ever disclose that I was an F grade student in high school?

Yep, it defined who I was/am right up until this very day.

That's why I'm a receptacle to garbage.

I'm a magnet for trash and other low-grade receptions.

The only good thing about 'America 3000' is the giant hairy beast from 'Big Trouble in Little China.' Anyone who watches this movie is a certified lowlife.

I'm talking an ocean's surface dweller low.

The movie ends with Flash Gordon and the one with the atomic bomb hair, that looks like it was steamrollered over by thousand-ton heavy machinery, make out.

Then everyone else throws their hats in the ring and the hairy beast has a John Cusack 'Say Anything' moment and it just ends leaving you with pins & needles conducting a relay race through your brain.

Silly post-apocalyptic comedy

[lor_ · 6 March 2023]

My review was written in May 1986 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

"America 3000" is a silly sci-fi pic from Cannon, scheduled for domestic release in August, but better suited to home video use.

Following the killing of her mother Rhea (Camilla Sparv in a campy performance), blonde female warrior Vera (Laurene Landon) succeeds to leadership of her fighting clan in an America (actually filmed in Israel) 900 years after a devastating nuclear war. She has a sibling rivalry with her sister Lakella (Victoria Barrett), who was passed over for the leadership post and Morha (Sue Giosa), the aggressive leder of another ruling clan.

In this environment, men are enslaved in various categories (workers, procreators, etc.), but Korvis (Chuck Wagner) finds a bunker designed to protect the U. S. President in time of nuclear war. He returns with advanced weaponry (including laser guns and hand grenades) to lead a successful rebellion against the women and create a happier, coexistence ending.

Film is relentlessly silly, with the made up language, based on English, producing infantile jokes. Writer-director David Engelbach thinks he's funny, with Korvis bringing back a big ghetto blaster to impress everyone typical of the failed humor. Though the bleak Israeli landscapes (which look like limestone quarries) are atmospheric, film never becomes more than an imitation of numerous pics like "Conan" and "Quest for Fire".

Barbarian women of the future apparrently wear too much eye makeup from the evidence here, just one of many camp elements likely to elicit audience groans. A hairy monster mascot named Aargh he Awful has some cute bits, but film plods along listlessly until an energetic final reel battle featuring some martial arts skills. Aimed at kids, film omits nudity. The actors do the best they can, but are made to appear ridiculous in most scenes.