Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone

i'm a big fan of portions of this film - primarily the Peter Strauss/Molly Ringwald portions - despite their 21 year age difference - their incessant battling brought out the duo's chemistry just as if this were a romantic comedy - and Molly's valley-girl-in-space remains one of my favorite scifi characters ever.

with their charisma - and a talented supporting cast including Ernie Hudson, Andrea Marcovicci, and Michael Ironside - along with some imaginative set design - and great dialog for Molly - this is more than a gimmicky scifi yarn - too bad the rest of the movie isn't up to that standard.

I saw this in July, 2008 for the first time and was surprised by the amount of mechanical devices and vehicles built for this one. And the attention to detail is higher than many modern productions.

A funny thing about making movies in 1983 is your choice of either using miniature models or constructing full scale behemoths. This movie goes for the latter option, which is one of its strengths, almost everything you see is right there and not some blue screened effect or shoddy computer graphics. This investment carries very well still today some 25 years later. It is like watching Road Warrior with all of the bikes, cars and trains and it all looks authentic because its actually there. Speaking of Road Warrior, it must be said that Spacehunter has an apparent look and feel of a post-apocalyptic desert world similar to that of the Mad Max films.

Striking are the interesting locations which are thrown at the viewer at a fast pace where new environments show up around every corner during their hunt in the forbidden zone. While short scenes in themselves, they come together nicely in creating the feel of a good adventure movie reminiscent of the Indiana Jones movies.

Not sure of the budget here, many things look really nice, some space scenes are awful but very, very short. I've mentioned two series of other films in this review, don't expect to find either one of them in Spacehunter, rather expect to find elements of all of them combined.

Been waiting for this for a long time - as cult classics go it's one of my more memorable adolescent reminiscences.

I remember seeing this on the big screen when it was first released. Loved it then, for several reasons: Strauss was capable but cool as the hero Wolf, Molly Ringwald was feisty, mouthy and cheeky as the elfin Nikki, and Michael Ironsides was virtually unrecognisable under his make-up, but still gave Overdog a sinister air of menace and cruelty.

Now, 20 years later, I get to see it again, and there are flaws that time has exposed. The effects and the music are very dated. The dialogue is weak in places, and the acting from the minor characters leaves something to be desired. However, it still has a sense of excitement and adventure that many other sci-fi flicks of the 80s now lack. The action is fast-paced, the interaction between the leads is good, and the scenery is suitably dark and barren.

7/10 - it's well worth overlooking the more dated elements in order to uncover the gem underneath.

Sure it's just Mad Max meets Star Wars with a main character that is obviously trying to be Han Solo, but it's got some cool ideas mashed up in the familiar packaging. The effects are decent and the action moves along at a good clip even though you've probably seen most of this stuff before. Worth checking out anyway because it has an old school charm lacking in today's CGI fests.

This was made during the whole 3D craze of the early 80's. To me it is actually one of the better ones as well. Is it great, no, but it is fun and never boring (well to me anyway). Notice though that in these 3D movies they are either sequels (Jaws 3D, Amityville 3D) or they have the largest titles ever conceived? Why not just call this one "Spacehunter" why add the last part? There is another one called "MetalStorm: The destruction of Jared Syn" and one called "Treasure of the Four Crowns". The only one I can think of that didn't fall into either of these two categories is "Parasite". This one focuses on this guy who has to track down these women who have landed on this planet full of a lot of weird stuff. They get captured by this sadistic weird looking machine guy. During his hunt for the women he runs into this gal who helps him a bit and they run into all these strange creatures and other rival hunters. This movie was rather entertaining and rather stood on its own. It was good without the 3D to me and is interesting to check out.