*sigh*
I had such high hopes for this movie. The box always called me in the movie store, but I always found something different. Then, I signed up for Netflix, and this popped up in my "reccomended" list. I put it in my queue, and waited patiently.
What a waste of postage.
I mean, this has an amazingly cool premise -- commies take over the US, Nevada is ruled by the King, anarchy with a surf rock mentality...it's all very cool. But that's as far as the writers went. It's like, they thought up this amazing idea, pitched it to an indie studio, were given a chunk of money, and then just sorta filmed the first thing that came into their head. From the very first scene, it's obvious that the movie is going to be both utterly predictable and pretty crappy.
It opens with the samurai defending a family from...uh..."bad guys." The scene is filled with images of him screaming, blades flashing, stunts being done, but leaves you wondering what just happened. Throughout the movie the action all happens like this -- all frustrating close ups and yelling until there's finally a wide shot of the samurai's opponents on the ground and him panting or grabbing his guitar or something. It's an action movie where the action all happens off camera.
Or maybe it's a buddy movie. The family he defended in the first scene dies, leaving a child following him around. For a reason known only to the writer, the child only moans at the samurai in the first half of the movie, while the samurai (of course) grouses about the kid following him. Inevitably, it's discovered the samurai has a heart of gold and really loves the kid, and the kid starts talking (again, for reasons only known to the writers of the movie).
The music is good. That's about all you can say about this incredibly disappointing movie. Bad writing. Bad acting. Bad action. If only we could take the premise, transplant some talented writer to give it some substance, and film it again...