Before the magic days of video, a TV-movie would get a little hype, air once, and if was something of a success, air a couple more times in syndication before vanishing into celluloid limbo forever.  Because of this, certain made-for-the-tube flicks like Lathe of Heaven, Sybil and Trilogy of Terror took on an almost-legendary mystique for seekers of fine entertainment while Satan’s School for Girls, Born Innocent and Angel Dusted became revered by bad movie fans everywhere, even though they were nearly impossible to find.

    Fortunately, this is the new age of the quick video fix, and Last Man on Planet Earth would easily have become a cult classic had it been made in the early-70s.  It would be easy to see this slowly collecting a following with fleeting middle-of-the-night showings on UHF stations causing half-asleep movie buffs to suddenly sit up and go “what the hell is THIS?” and relate tales of this amazing piece of work to their friends the next day.  It is, simply put, the most jaw-dropping piece of trashy-yet-visionary sci-fi to air on the tube since the 70’s TV version of Brave New World.  (The ’98 version is equally lame, of course, but lacks a certain corn value.)

    In “the not-too-distant future,” a chemical war with Afghanistan has caused almost the entire male population of Earth to croak from a Y-chromosome directed plague.  Lesbianism runs rampant, women control everything, and everything is painted in bright, shiny colors and looks like leftover sets from Absolute Beginners.  Fourth-year genetics major Hope dreams of men, and her holographic buffed-up partner doesn’t do much for her, so she takes it upon herself to take her illegal experiments out to a cabin in the woods where she grows a real-life man.  Knowing the political climate, however, she’s careful to remove the DNA attributes that cause violent behavior.

    After pulling the infant out of a large glass container (with a lengthy shot showing us that yes, indeed, this is a boy), she names him Adam (nnngh) and raises him (though she explains that she “has no intention of being anyone’s mother.” Huh?).  His growth is phenomenal, and he ages about a year every day and a half.  (It’s never explained if this was planned or not) and soon turns into dreamy-yet-innocent Paul Francis (from Warlock III).  She teaches him to read, but he would rather listen to rap while dissecting physics problems.   Meanwhile, she contains her barely-repressed feelings as he walks around naïvely naked.

    She doesn’t tell him about the war and the fact that his presence might be a bit odd to others, so he escapes in her VW Beetle to go to the city.  Nobody notices him at first, but then a little girl shrieks “IT’S A MAN!” and everyone freaks out, Body Snatchers-style.  Hope and her faculty advisor Esther meet up with Adam again, managing to explain the whole WWIII thing (which doesn’t take into account that there are women in the military) and why everyone hates men. It seems to be mostly because a female surgeon general that looks like Margarete Camermeyer was assassinated by a man while speaking to a bunch of stock footage of a women’s rights rally.

    Enter hard-boiled FBI agent Tamlyn Tomita, who tracks down Hope because Esther dumbly mentions his name.  Chase ensues, Adam runs away and Hope gets shot by Tomita’s blonde partner, who inexplicably, like most of the other female cops in the film, can’t aim a gun and can barely fire without weeping.

    Adam meets up with a teenage hetero who takes her to her sister (Martha Hackett), a drag king prostitute who resembles Michael Jackson.  She, in turn, takes him to Mother May, who runs Club Lysistrata, a forbidden brothel for women to enlist the services of a few surviving men.  Meanwhile, outraged FBI head Veronica Cartwright joins the chase and Hope escapes from the hospital because, natch, the police guard is really, really stupid after being confronted by Tomita, who taunts her with, “You’re one of those closet hetero cases, aren’t you?  A dirty hologram, they’re not enough for you.  You need a real sweaty, hairy thing.”

    When things don’t work out at the brothel because Adam’s genes prevent him from indulging a client in S&M fantasies, Tomita arrests Hope, who enters the brothel as a trick in order to see her “son.”  Adam escapes with a fellow hooker to a quarantined football field that serves as the home base for the Reclaimers, a group of virus-immune men bent on getting power back.  The leader is crazed Christian conspiracy ex-car salesman John Doe (Cliff DeYoung), who seems to be doing a fine Dennis Hopper impression. Despite Doe’s arguments, Adam refuses to “spill the blood of the heathen bitches.”  Doe threatens the FBI with Adam’s youth and claims that his mere presence will cause panic (the fact that he ages a year a day doesn’t seem to bother anyone), and he agrees to trade the boy for some women in a high-security prison with which to mate.

    Gunfire ensues, Tomita gets away with both Adam and Doe, but director Cartwright betrays both of ‘em and blows away the Reclaimers’ compound.  Or, more aptly, some computer generated fire appears over the compound while a model burns.  Cartwright infects Adam with the Y-virus, and Hope (now teamed with Tomita) rescues Adam in order to find a cure.  They go back to the cottage, where Hope finally gets her incest fantasies fulfilled, as the two have PG-13 sex.

    The ending, of course, doesn’t really resolve anything.  Hope, natch, becomes pregnant with a boy (maybe she can avoid having sex with it this time) and Cartwright’s villain just sort of vanishes from the movie.

    I really don’t know quite where to begin.  The acting is actually pretty good, with DeYoung and Cartwright camping it up.  Tomita, however, seems completely disinterested in the movie (who can blame her?) and delivers all her hard-boiled lines with a dull thud.

    It’s unclear whether or not this is supposed to be a satire.  The dialogue is so awful, brimming with feminist-influenced futurespeak (“Mother Earth” is used in place of “God,” a cool band is described as being “so frozen”) that it’s impossible to take seriously.  Director Les Landau (whose credits consist mostly of  “Star Trek: Voyager” episodes) doesn’t seem to be in on the joke, though, and despite all the bright colors, everything is shot heavy-handedly.  Lots of issues are brought up, but none of them ever amount to anything.

    In place of social commentary, we do get a lot of lesbianism.  Cartwright’s character turns out to be a closet hetero that cheats on her wife, lesbian softcore soap operas air on TV, and two women make out.  Still, there’s really no titillation factor, and most of the flesh on display is Adam’s.

    Despite all the rare potential for feminist thought in science fiction (see The Handmaid’s Tale for proper use), all the women are so poorly written and filled with contradictions that it never manages to provoke any thought deeper than “Who the hell green-lighted this?”  “Suspenseful” scenes are staged so shoddily (when Hope gets captured the second time, she manages to have an entire conversation with Adam as he’s running away with a policewoman right there!) and highlighted with a pokey TV-movie score that some form of inebriation is highly recommended for viewing.

    Last Man on Planet Earth is a movie that manages to be terribly subversive without even realizing it, and thus, does nothing with the potential.  As a result, it’s goofy, unbelievable piece of work that will probably become a Logan’s Run-level timepiece someday.  It’s stupid!  It’s lame!  It aired on UPN!  It’s highly recommended!
 

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