Friday, April 5, 2019

Blu-ray Review: Barb Wire


Mill Creek Entertainment; Amazon
It seems like there is a new superhero movie in theaters every other month, and almost every single one of them makes gobs of hundreds of millions at the box office. However, rewind back to the mid-1990s, a time when comic book movies weren't taken as seriously and many were complete flops, such as 1996's Barb Wire starring Pamela Anderson.

The movie was recently released on Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment. There are no special features or bonus extras.

Based upon the Dark Horse Comics' series, Barb Wire (R; 99 minutes; $14.98) centers around Barbara Kopetski (a.k.a. Barb Wire), the owner of the nightclub Hammerhead in the war zone city of Steel Harbor in the year 2017. When she isn't bartending, she's making a little extra cash as a bounty hunter and mercenary. Her world is turned upside down when her former lover Axel Hood (played by Temuera Morrison) reenters her life.

Axel is a freedom fighter who's trying to help a former government scientist Dr. Corrina Devonshire (played by Victoria Rowell), escape the corrupted government by sneaking her into Canada. In order to fly out of the city, she'll need a special pair of contacts to bypass the airport's retinal scan, and of course Barb Wire is the only person who can help her get the contacts.


Final Thoughts

I didn't grow up reading comic books, so I was never familiar with the Barb Wire comic books series from the 1990s; though I was well aware of the 1996 film adaptation starring Baywatch's Pamela Anderson. Despite my lack of knowledge from the source material, I was intrigued by the advertisements for the film and wanted to see it. Eventually the movie was to premiere on a Saturday night on Showtime, and since I was on a school trip (Science Fair? I don't exactly remember.) and wouldn't be back home until after it has started, my parents were going to record it on a VHS recorder (Remember those?). Well, let's just say they quit recording it within the first few minutes where Pamela Anderson is dancing erotically and showing off some skin. Lets just say I was a little disappointed at the time, but I eventually saw the movie shortly after without them knowing about it.

Barb Wire isn't a very good movie! Yes, Pamela Anderson has the right "assets" and she does a half-way decent job playing the heroine, but the script is horrible with terrible cliches and cheesy dialogue. Don't let me get started on the action scenes or the lack of them!!! If you're looking for an entertaining superhero thrill-ride, then I recommend watching a Marvel film instead. 

However, I did enjoy watching Barb Wire on Blu-ray, mostly for the nostalgic feeling The Blu-ray is the standard barebones release with no special features. The picture quality is pretty good and the audio isn't too bad. If you're a diehard fan of the Barb Wire comics, then you're probably be interested in owning the Blu-ray. 

*Note: I received a review copy from Mill Creek Entertainment.
All opinions are my own.

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