Barb Wire (1996)

"Barb Wire" (Pamela Anderson) is a nightclub owner in a futuristic America where a civil war has broken out between two distinct factions. The first is known as the "Congressional Directoret" and the second as the "Resistance". Now, as it so happens Barb Wire also moonlights as a mercenary who has little sympathy for either side and operates in the only free city left which is known as "Steel Harbor". However, when a former government scientist named "Dr. Corina Devonshire" (Victoria Rowell) escapes from the Congressional Directoret and arrives in Steel Harbor carrying some special contact lenses worth $2 million—along with Barb Wire's former lover named "Axel Hood" (Temuera Morrison)—Barb Wire becomes indirectly involved. And that spells bad news for whichever side she's not on. Anyway, rather than reveal the rest of the details and possibly spoil the film for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this movie was widely panned by the critics when it first came out. As a matter of fact, Pamela Anderson received several Razzie Awards for her performance which included "Worst New Star" and "Worst Actress". Other Razzie Awards for the film included "Worst Picture" along with being nominated for "Worst Screenplay" and "Worst Original Song". So judging from these awards and nominations one would think that this was an extremely bad movie. However, rather than simply going with the proverbial crowd I happen to have my own opinion which is quite different. First, I didn't think her performance was that bad. As a matter of fact I kind of enjoyed it. Not only that but I have seen a lot worse movies than this particular one. Now, that's not to say that this film was great by any means because it clearly wasn't. But it was hardly the worst movie for that year. Nowhere close. Likewise, although I didn't especially care for the performance of Temuera Morrison I thought the performance of Udo Kier (as "Curly") was actually quite good. Anyway, there you have it. Again, while "Barb Wire" may not be a great film I didn't think it was necessarily that bad either. I rate it as average.

I was bored one evening, and hunted through the movies available for free on Comcast On Demand. One was this film, which had intrigued me a bit when it was on originally.It was just barely interesting enough to keep me watching until the end.Yes, as has been said many times, the story is lifted almost directly from Casablanca, and otherwise adjusted to fit the characters from the Dark Horse comic. Many reviewers at the time of the film's release saw it as a ripoff, but to me it read more like an homage.This was pretty much the extent to which director David Hogan made good decisions in this. Lighting apparently meant to be moody ended up only muddling the action. The sound mixing was awful (at least, for TV), and much of Pamela Anderson's dialogue was unintelligible. Any opportunity to flash Pam's breasts was seized upon.At that, the writing is pretty weak too. Maybe it was because of the sound problem, but I was twenty minutes into the film before I was sure that the plot had actually started. How the writers did an homage to "Casablanca" while keeping the plot so paper-thin is amazing.Also, most of the acting seems quite mechanical. Pam was highly criticized over this at the time, but I've seen better from her. For that matter, Victoria Rowell seemed quite one-note as well, and I know she has some serious acting chops from her years on "Diagnosis Murder." Thus, I suspect that the problem was not in the performers but in the director and the script. Only Jack Noseworthy (Charlie), Jennifer Bank (Spike), and to a lesser extent Clint Howard (Schmitz) deliver really good performances.I do give high marks to the stunt department of this film, though; the fight scenes were for the most part nicely choreographed and well performed. Some of the action late in the film failed to deliver in that regard, but that seemed more an editing problem than anything the stunt people would have had to do with.The soundtrack, though not generally my preferred style of music, was also well done and fit the setting and action appropriately.Overall I'd say this movie is worth seeing -- once and only once, provided you aren't actually paying any money for it that you aren't already spending.

Barb Wire isn't the worst movie of 1996(quite), Bio-Dome and Ed are worse, but it is a terrible movie with its only redeeming asset Pamela Anderson's cleavage. Anderson is very sexy and does better than expected in the action sequences, but the way she delivers her lines just for me amplifies her limitations as an actress. And the rest of the acting ranges to pretty poor to non-existent. The action sequences are in a way efficiently performed but choreographed in a generic way and some of the editing feels sloppy. I liked how catchy and how upbeat the soundtrack was but it got a bit too loud and too much after a while, the script is cheesy and weak and the story is so thin you have to watch closely to see if there is a story, and I have no better news about the direction. Overall, a terrible movie. 1/10 Bethany Cox

and don't watch this movie either,unless you're really desperate for something to do.but trust me,you could always find something better to do.i mean wow,this was not good.i managed to get to the forty four minute mark before giving up and shutting it down.there's just no coherent plot here,and no real acting of any kind involved.plus,the music was awful,although that's just personal preference.the opening scene sets the bar pretty low and it just gets worse from there.for some strange reason,Xander Berkeley(who's a quality actor)decided to appear in this mess.oh,well,everybody is entitled to a bad movie once in a while.anyway,for me, because it's not the worse movie i've seen,Barb Wire is a 3/10