Now i remember seeing this film on late night television for the first time when i was around ten years old. I remember loving it then, mainly for the action and thinking the main character of Hunter was cool (he rode a kick-a** motorcycle). As i grew older i always remembered this movie and tried tracking a copy down to no avail. I always. Remembered the sweet title ; "warlords of the 21st century. Well to my surprise and great delight i found this title under a different title of "Battletruck". I had to pick it up! Now i've read plenty of reviews who put this movie down. I honestly don't know what else they would want or expect from a low budget action/sci-fi film. I've seen multi million dollar Hollywood films that were not as entertaining as this film. Its a highly entertaining good versus evil film, and it was just as magical and great as i remembered from my childhood. This is simply one mans opinion, I'm a huge nerd for independent films. All i can say is that if you too like me are a sap for low budget independent cinema you cannot go wrong with "Warlords of the 21st Century (aka Battletruck)". Check it out, hope you enjoy!

Another post-apocalyptic sci-fi, recently released on a DVD alongside Deathsport. Likewise, this one is very lowly rated (4.1 at the moment). I can understand that about Deathsport, but I think Battletruck (aka Warlords of the 21st Century) is downright good. I think the problem is that it's very similar to George Miller's The Road Warrior. Some IMDb reviewers even refer to it as a rip-off, but it was being made before The Road Warrior was ever even released, and, at least in most places, it was released almost at the exact same time (in the U.S. both were released in April of 1982). Compared to The Road Warrior, okay, Battletruck isn't nearly as good. But I won't hold that against it. The Road Warrior is all kinds of awesome. Battletruck is merely good, with a less ambitious story, though still probably too ambitious to completely succeed with the small budget it had. But still, it's pretty good. Michael Beck of The Warriors stars (though he doesn't appear for a good while into the film, which is a cool touch) as a lone wolf in this post-apocalyptic wasteland. He rescues Annie McEnroe (a character actress whom you might recognize from Beetlejuice and many other films), who has escaped her villain father (James Wainwright), but is left stranded in the middle of nowhere. Wainwright drives around in the titular truck raiding whatever settlements he can find and stealing all the oil and gasoline he can find. Beck takes McEnroe to a democratic settlement called Clearwater (among whose citizens is John Ratzenberger, who probably has more lines in this movie than any other before he started working with Pixar). They aren't all too trusting of Beck, who does some business with Clearwater but lives out on his own somewhere, and some of the citizens fear McEnroe's presence. That proves insightful when Wainwright comes along looking for her (and fuel). The action sequences in the film are well done, and the scenery is nice (it was filmed in New Zealand). Too bad it was shot in Academy ratio (or perhaps only still exists in that format).

Loved Battletruck. Awesome movie.. very watchable again and again. Its got a really gritty post apocalyptic feel to it and i think its just as good as Mad Max 1 and 2 and BETTER than Thunderdome. The opening sequence with the radio announcer and the smoke in the picture is great.. so simple.. but very effective.What i will say in the way of criticism is that there is no need for the filmmakers to pretend this is shot in the states... The American accents from the NZ actors are awful for starters ("Gaaad Daayyum") and then there's the fact that the film obviously does not take place in the US (right hand drive, the NZ mountain ranges) NZ is great.. show it off !

I had to see if I could remember the name of this movie, and I'm perversely thrilled to find it. I haven't actually seen this film in years, but it became something of a benchmark that I measure all other crap movies I've ever seen against. When I was only about 14 I rented this movie with my best friend, when we had the brilliant notion that maybe all those movies we'd never heard of really were worth watching, so we picked one that seemed to have a cool cover. It was the most perfect piece of evidence that our theory was flawed in the extreme. Everything about this movie, from the acting, to the sets, to the effects, were laughably awful. The climax of the film was when the protagonist built what was supposed to be some sort of unstoppable war machine, but looked more like an errector set experiment gone horribly wrong, and nailed to a $50 junk-yard reject of a vehicle. Anyway, if you want an example of awful film making, rent this movie; otherwise, run far and fast towards the other side of the store.