Barb Wire Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

Barb Wire Blu-ray Movie Review

The pinnacle of 20th Century camp? Slow down. No need to give 'Barb Wire' so much credit...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown February 17, 2011

Barb Wire isn't as bad as you might think. It's much, much worse. So much worse that writing anything resembling a remotely insightful review is all but impossible. After all, insight requires depth, something sorely lacking in first-time feature film director David Hogan's B-movie misfire. Hogan's "war-torn" future dystopia amounts to a seedy biker bar and an industrial junkyard, Chuck Pfarrer and Ilene Chaiken's stiff-n-stilted Razzie-nominated screenplay squanders its camp potential on dim-bulb dialogue and nowhere-fast storytelling, its Casablanca parallels add infuriating insult to incapacitating injury, the film oozes sex but isn't sexy in the slightest, its grasp on cinematic fundamentals is shaky and, brace for impact, a blowup doll could have delivered a more convincing and compelling performance than Baywatch buoy Pamela Anderson. (Too harsh? My apologies. With great distaste comes great hyperbole.) The original Dark Horse Comics series was more guilty pulp pleasure than comic-shop Shakespeare, and comicbook adaptations had yet to mount a respectable run on the film industry, but there's just no excuse for a misbegotten mess like Barb Wire.

"Barbara Kopetski died in the war. I'm Barb Wire."

2017. A second American Civil War has left the country in ruins, its population centers destroyed and its last bastion of freedom -- the crime-ridden city of Steel Harbor -- a wretched hive of scum and villainy. To keep her head above the encroaching chaos, tough-as-nails nightclub owner Barb Wire (Pamela Anderson, Borat) moonlights as a bounty hunter and mercenary, a deadly side-career that pits her against Steel Harbor's most dangerous denizens. It's business as usual for Barb... until former flame and freedom fighter Axel Hood (Temuera Morrison, Episode II: Attack of the Clones) rolls into town. It seems his wife, government scientist Cora D (Victoria Rowell, Diagnosis Murder), is on the run from her old boss, Congressional Directorate fascist Colonel Pryzer (Steve Railsback, The Hitcher II). Desperate to warn the world about a bioweapon being developed in Washington, Axel and Cora are seeking safe passage to Canada and Barb is the only one they can turn to for help.

Bad move. Barb isn't exactly an upstanding citizen and double crosses her ex, or so it seems. Barb Wire is actually full of double (and triple) crosses, obnoxious opportunists, crass comicbook caricatures and all around duplicitous criminals. Even the film's titular heroine is a stain on Steel Harbor's reputation, leaving audiences with few people to root for, little to invest in and even less to care about. Hogan's pedestrian futurescape and Pfarrer and Chaiken's near-incoherent script -- one that relies on cumbersome genre winks and groan-inducing one-liners rather than cohesive plot or character development -- only exacerbate the problem, making it difficult to enjoy Barb Wire on any level. The story crumbles, there isn't any sense of tension or momentum, pacing is slow and unwieldy, the performances are painful, every word is gummier than the last, the costumes make leather chaps look appealing, the gunplay stutters and stalls, the action scenes fizzle and the visual effects would make Ed Wood cringe.

There is a certain voyeuristic thrill to watching it all unravel, I'll give its small band of insatiable apologists that. Who could resist staring at yet another Tinsel Town train wreck of Battlefield Earth proportions? An alignment of imploding stars? An infamous Big Studio blunder that has, by some maligned miracle, managed to claw its way into the 21st Century and earn a Blu-ray release? Unfortunately, curiosity, disbelief and a few mean-spirited laughs at a celebrity's expense aren't enough to make Barb Wire's disorganized march on the Mall of Mediocrity worth watching. Within minutes of settling into Steel Harbor, all ll I felt was the overwhelming urge to press the eject button and pretend the film never happened; to put Anderson and her befuddled castmates out of their collective misery the only way I could.

Still, one man's trash is another man's scrapheap. Barb Wire has its share of champions, short in supply as they may be; unrepentant fans who delight in its cheap pleasures and tawdry teases, B-movie addicts who adore it as remorseless drivel, and SyFy junkies who know how good awful can sometimes be. I've loved my share of shamed flops and critically panned (ahem, universally misunderstood) genre pics. (Navy Seals wasn't just my first R-rated movie, it was my second, third, eighth, sixteenth... you get the idea. I watched it non-stop when I was a kid and I'll go to my grave defending it.) Barb Wire isn't one of them. I tried to give it a chance, I did. I tried to enjoy it for what it is rather than approach my first viewing with preconceived notions. But it didn't matter. Hogan, Pfarrer, Chaiken and Anderson did everything they could to alienate me and they succeeded.

Barb Wire Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Barb Wire's sultry 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer is alluring and attractive... if you squint and stare from across the room. Unsightly edge enhancement takes a toll on the presentation (moderate to severe ringing is apparent throughout), unmistakable noise reduction glazes many a scene, and darker sequences suffer with middling delineation and crushed shadows. And it only gets worse as the film hobbles along. Bota's irradiated dystopia palette is rendered with unnaturally hot and sweaty saturation, black levels are subject to crush and poor resolve, and skintones are often muddy or flushed. It's all bolder and bawdier than the colors that adorn the original Dark Horse comicbook, I'll admit. But not in a good way. Meanwhile, detail ranges from passable to decent, DNR-born waxiness abounds, fine textures falter throughout, edge halos persist and object definition is unreliable. Even contrast is a bit inconsistent (albeit not enough to warrant any frothing at the mouth). And the encode itself? Though fairly proficient overall, it still struggles with print blemishes, minor artifacting, soupy noise and other digital nonsense. The Blu-ray edition of Barb Wire may be a high-class hooker compared to its DVD counterpart, but that doesn't mean it boasts a classy high definition presentation.

Barb Wire Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is suitably rude-n-rowdy but lacks the precision and polish of a higher caliber lossless mix. Dialogue is clean and clear, gunfire comes complete with a hearty kick kack and Wire's Steel Harbor stomping grounds permeate the entire soundfield. The LFE channel does little to distinguish itself, other than going for the sonic jugular whenever the opportunity presents itself, but any criticism should fall squarely on the film's blunt-force sound design. Likewise, the rear speakers don't exactly draw listeners into the experience, but rather stage a simplistic, superficial assault on the ears. Even then, ambient effects are merely serviceable, directionality is more akin to a shotgun than a sniper rifle, and pans are meatier than they are effective. Dynamics and prioritization are up to snuff though, and anyone who enjoys Barb Wire will more than likely enjoy Universal's brash and reckless lossless track.

Barb Wire Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No special features to account for. Sorry, gents.

Barb Wire Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

How bad is Barb Wire? So mind-numbingly, side-splittingly bad that a handful of people will inevitably get a kick out of it. And no, I'm not one of them. Universal's barebones Blu-ray release isn't going to win the film many new converts. Its AV presentation is underwhelming and there isn't a single special feature to be had. (Which is a real shame. Any movie this awful should come loaded with self-deprecating supplements. I know I'm not everyone, but I'd pay ten bucks for a terrible flick with a hilarious commentary or a candid "What Were We Thinking?" look back.) Even Barb Wire fans will walk away shaking their heads.