Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Tactical Bikinis

Those who worry we'll have to do without gratuitous cheesecake after the apocalypse will be relieved to see 1988's She-Wolves of the Wasteleand, aka Phoenix the Warrior. What might have been a mildly amusing, fifteen minute softcore porn was unwisely stretched to feature length. Beautiful women and cheesy effects at some point stop making up for the blandness of the performances. Still, there's some charm in this turkey.

In this post-apocalypse, all the men are dead after they started a war, of course. Now it's the presumably more peaceful minded better half of the species who battle it out with machine guns and spears. However, one withered, evil geneticist is trying to remake men and impregnates future Playboy Playmate Peggy McIntaggart with a boy child.

She's on the run for her life, dodging vicious ladies in skimpy, ill-fitting costumes and heading out to the budget-friendly desert. What can she do?

Enter Phoenix (Kathleen Kinmont), the fearsome sand trapper. What is a sand trapper? Who knows. It's something that requires Phoenix to tote an m16 and train herself to peak fighting prowess. She demonstrates her skill again and again in ponderously choreographed fight scenes.

Halfway through the movie, they run into Guy (James H. Emery), another escapee, who happens to have the reflexes to take point in the action scenes. So much for that all-girl premise.

The movie also features Persis Khambatta from Star Trek: The Motion Picture as the villain. This was not her best film but she tackles the role with gusto.

She-Wolves of the Wasteland is available on Amazon Prime under the title Phoenix the Warrior.

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