There's a certain joy that comes from poking around a video store. Sometimes you can find a movie you haven't thought of years or that one particular title you've been meaning to watch but never remember to look for. Sometimes you can find a movie you know nothing about but, after watching it, you wonder how you missed seeing such a great movie for so long. Sometimes, however, you just end up renting something lousy. The final option is what happened to me recently when I rented The Ultimate Warrior.

The box hyped the fact that the movie was both written and directed by the man who directed Enter the Dragon. This should of been my first clue, but I guess I wasn't thinking straight at the time. The reason that Enter the Dragon is remembered is because of the charisma of Bruce Lee, not the leaden directing style of Robert Clouse. After that career high he went on to direct such things as China O'Brien [a martial arts film starring nobody I can recall at the moment] and Gymkata [yet another martial arts movie where Kurt Thomas is a butt-kicking gymnast.] This should of been a tip-off that I was getting into something bad, but I was suckered into watching it because of the casting. Any action movie that features both Max von Sydow and Yul Brynner couldn't be all bad, could it? It could.

The back story, what there was of it, was that the world had fallen apart for no discernible reason. There was some talk about crop failures and fossil fuels being used up, but for the most part it seemed that the world had gone to pot one weekend when nobody was looking for no other reason than to make a back-drop for the movie. If you've ever seen a cheap post apocalypse movie [and, really, who hasn't?] you know what to expect. Still, the set-up was better than Waterworld but most things are. Anyways, the story is focused on two rival groups that live about a block apart in New York who are in competition for pigeons, dried milk and whatever else they can come across to eat. Think West Side Story only less engaging. Into this mess comes Yul Brynner as a big, shirt-less knife wielding warrior. For some reason he decides to join the "good" tribe of survivors, even though they all seem to be unsympathetic, petulant whiners who turn on each other with no hesitation. Small wonder Yul spends most of his time in Max Von Sydow's library smoking cigars instead of mingling with the locals.

The opposing camp -who's led by a man with the imposing name of "Carrot"- are running what appears to be a soup kitchen inside an old jail, are staffed with people who seem to be having great fun while society goes down the tubes, and generally appear to be a lot more fun than the "good" tribe of survivors. Trouble is, none of them know how to fight so Yul Brynner has no trouble knocking off endless waves of them during the action sequences. After a couple of plot lines that don't go anywhere unspool the movie reaches it's conclusion with Yul wandering around a subway station and getting into a few more knife fights until the film finally slumps to an end.

As you can tell I didn't think too much of the film, so why did I bother to write this rambling review? It's certainly not a real milestone in the career of Yul Brynner or anyone else associated with the flick nor is it even particularly entertaining in a distracting sort of way. Instead it's more of a curiosity, something that employed the cast and crew for a few weeks, slipped in and out of the theaters, was released onto video for no other reason than that everything is eventually put on tape, and sat moldering on the shelf until I got the bright idea of renting it. For some reason I like the idea that even movies this unremarkable are waiting around somewhere to be rediscovered.

Questions? Comments? Do you want to admit you've actually heard of this film? Drop me a line at gleep9@hotmail.com. Swagger on out of this bomb to either the Second Movie or the Main page.

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