I'm not the biggest fan of Yul Brynner. To me, he was never an actor - he just played himself. It's no wonder he was well cast in "Westworld." Regardless, he did appear in some good films in his day. "The Ultimate Warrior" is a low budget but entertaining film that is based in an apocalyptic world. Max Von Sydow is the leader of a small band of people who need to escape from the ruins that New York has become. They seek an island that is located near North Carolina, where there is fresh food, water and in which the air hasn't been polluted. The problem that the survivors of New York face, is that the city is run by criminal gangs who prevent anyone from leaving. Yul Brynner is recruited to guide Max Von Sydow and his group through the city's underground tunnels, before they have a chance to leave New York. Dangers of various kinds are in front of them during their journey. The majority of filming was done on the studio backlots, which is to be expected from a film that is based in the future. There is some good action and William Smith is good as the leader of the criminal gangs. For a man of 60, Yul Brynner is an energetic man of action. It is Max Von Sydow who gives the best performance. The director is Robert Clouse. He made his best film, the Bruce Lee classic "Enter the Dragon."

How well I remember The Ultimate Warrior when he was a big draw in Vince McMahon's WWF back in the day. With him in mind I thought I would get a titanically built warrior along the lines of Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Instead I got Yul Brynner looking very uncomfortable in a role for which a Schwarzeneggar was required to make it believable.The Ultimate Warrior the movie is set in an apocalyptic New York in the year of 2012. A plague has descended on the land and the world's food supply has been pretty wiped out. Manhattan island has descended into gangs that have formed tribes. One of the more civilized tribes is headed by Max Von Sydow who is a scientist and whose son-in-law Richard Kelton has developed some vegetable seeds that are immune to the plague virus. But he and his pregnant wife, Joanna Miles have to escape to the country and give these seeds a chance to grow.Which is where Yul Brynner comes in, The Ultimate Warrior, an ultimate fighting machine who makes hash out of an invading tribe headed by William Smith. Can Von Sydow and Brynner keep civilization alive.Brynner was never a man exactly out of shape, but he was 55 and looking it when he did this film. Fifteen years earlier he might have been believable, but not now. Von Sydow was all right though as the voice of dying civilization.One thing though in that last hand to hand fight with William Smith if Schwarzeneggar had been cast he would never have had to make the sacrifice he did. You'll have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about.Only for Yul Brynner's fans and even they should approach this one with a caution.

That and there's no spaceships or nuclear holocaust involved (contrary to other reviewers who apparently didn't actually bother to watch the film).In current terms, the film is probably closest to a zombie film where the world has gone through a "plague" killing off most of the population and making it impossible (nearly) to grow food. If you can imagine your favorite apocalyptic virus-zombie film combined with Lord of the Flies and produced as more of a 1960s film than a film just a couple years before Star Wars, that's what you get.Yul is convincing in the lead roll more because the population is starving to death than because he looks like or acts much like a warrior, though he's much more convincing than Charlton Heston would be in the same roll or in the Apes roll had he played that.Although the story is strangely insightful in some ways, especially if you've just seen Food, Inc. or The Informant or Winged Migration, there are holes in the plot (set in 2012 being one of them) that leave a lot open and causes the film to not age very well.

As a former warrior, I would say that the scene where he chops his own hand off, well, a smarter man would have chopped the other guys hand off instead.Though Yul Is Cool! (in a sense that just transcends generations)...What I mean is in the scene at the end, where he is lashed to another man and they are battling to the death and he throws the other man down some hole or other (been like 29 years since I saw this) And then takes a hatchet and lifts the other man up then wacks off his own hand at the wrist... I would have wacked off the other guys hand instead. Of course this would mean either lifting him higher, which after combat one might not have the stamina/strength to do, or just hacking away at the other guys wrist... Gruesome, surely, but effective and necessary.