Once again the world has degenerated into a barbarous state in the wake of a nuclear holocaust. Rugged road warrior Trace (eassyed with mucho macho panache by Gary Watkins) must rescue his sister Arlie (buxom and shapely blonde Lynda Wiesmeier, who frequently bares her beautifully bountiful breasts) from the evil Scourge (a nicely slimy portrayal by Joe Mari Avellana) and his gang of scummy bandits. Tough gal Stringer (a pleasingly scrappy portrayal by Laura Banks) helps Trace out.Filipino exploitation cinema maestro Cirio H. Santiago once again works his usual immensely enjoyable B-movie magic: The brisk pace never flags for a minute, a gritty take-no-prisoners tone pervades throughout, neat use of desolate desert locations, a generous serving of yummy gratuitous female nudity, hysterical profane dialogue, and even a vicious tribe of subterranean albino cannibals tossed in for extra campy measure. Naturally, Santiago certainly doesn't skimp on the thrilling low-rent action: We've got down'n'dirty fights, lively car chases, fierce shoot outs, and lots of stuff of stuff blows up real good. Moreover, there are solid supporting contributions from Linda Grovenor as sweet psychic Spike, Jack S. Daniels as skeevy lackey Scag, Joseph Zucchero as kooky inventor Whiz, Steve Parvin as sniveling wimp Bo, and Nigel Hogge as the opportunistic Ambassador. Christopher Young's robust full-bore score does the rousing trick. The fairly polished cinematography by Ricardo Remias boasts several snazzy stylistic flourishes. A spot-on schlocky blast.

Exploitation legend Cirio H. Santiago strikes again with yet another Filipino-made post-apocalypse actioner after the previous year's STRYKER. This is a straightforward action packed B-movie, nothing more nothing less, that is happy to rip-off MAD MAX 2 and about half a dozen other such movies. And you know what? This is really fun stuff! The reason being that there's no plot as such, just one action scene after another. We've got shoot-outs, burning stuntmen, car chases, lots of crashes, explosions, and to top it all off a large scale battle between two armies which employs a surprising amount of extras and proves to be a worthwhile finale. The action is straight-forward stuff, mildly convincing but lacking in any impressive stunts or camera-work. Don't expect any style; Santiago is no George Miller or Enzo G. Castellari, he shoots his film workmanlike and just gets on with it, making up in quantity if not in quality for the action bits.Other elements of interest include the opening stick-fight with metal bars (coming from the man who made THE PACIFIC CONNECTION, this is not a surprise); a few slow-motion car stunts as they roll over the edges of cliffs; hero Trace burning lots of bad guys with his flame-thrower, which is pretty cool in itself; a topless woman tied to the bonnet of a car (!); a tribe of troglodyte albino cannibals known only as the "Sandmen", whose inspiration stems from the Morlocks in THE TIME MACHINE, it seems; and the aforementioned large scale destruction/battle of the climax, fittingly topped by a mildly entertaining death for the chief villain. The arid locations in the Philippines make for an authentic backdrop for the production and the costumes, weaponry, and armoured vehicles fit the bill, even if they're not particularly outstanding or memorable.Hero Gary Watkins is definitely a Mel Gibson-wannabe and actually looks a lot like Gibson, so much that you'd think the two were brothers. Thankfully in his imitative performance some of Gibson's world-weary character comes through making Watkins an adequate lead. The three female supporting characters - one a female warrioress in the Sandahl Bergman mould, the other a psychic like Laura Gemser in ENDGAME, the other the sister of the lead character - are rather indistinguishable from each other and their characters don't hold the interest (good thing that there's lots of action to take your mind off the people involved then). Lynda Wiesmeier turns out to be a Playboy Playmate and unsurprisingly spends about 90% of her screen time topless. The only other characters that stand out are an annoying comic relief dwarf and the sneering villain, as played by the Filipino-born Joseph Anderson with some relish. The rest of the cast are mostly just undistinguished Filipino actors and don't make much of an impact. In the end, WHEELS OF FIRE is pretty much a forgettable flick that entertains you throughout with the wealth of action that it offers, rather like a Dolph Lundgren movie or a Stallone/Norris Vietnam movie. Enjoyable once but not one you'll go back to, this is B-movie making at its most solid.

At first glance, you would think that that Wheels of Fire is a complete Mad Max rip-off. That's because it is, quite clearly, a complete Mad Max rip-off. The film starts off with a preamble sequence that passes by far too quickly to get any particular scope on the story, but it basically runs thus: the film starts with our lone driver hero (and not bad at jumping massive drops either), Trace (Gary Watkins) drives over to meet his sister Arlee (Lynda Weismeier) and her new boyfriend Bo (Steve Parvin) at a surprisingly organised post-apocalyptic encampment that actually makes the wasteland look not-so-bad. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't last long. The boyfriend gets in a fight over car keys, it all gets out of hand, and everyone gets ticked off, forcing Trace and co. to beat a swift exit. They get separated, the boyfriend gets killed and Arlee gets sent off as fresh meat for the bad guys Scourge (Joseph Anderson) and the man who only ever says "Come on!", Scag (Jack S. Daniels). This, quite reasonably, puts Trace in a bad mood, so he teams up with bounty hunter and hawkmaster Stinger (Laura Banks), River Tam-alike Spike (Linda Grovenor) and short fuel tanker escort Whiz (Joe Zucchero), who doesn't seem to do much of anything other than "Ooga ooga!". He's basically R2D2, but less useful. The one thing I thought that let the film down (aside from some ropey acting) was that there were so many brilliant ideas that the writer had for this story, but with only an hour and a half running time, they had to cram everything in at once, which really disrupted the storyline. Everything moves too quickly. It's clear that the story is rich with opportunity and the writer wanted to express that. Considering how rich the characters and potential stories are here, I can't help wondering if they should've made it a TV series instead. At the very least, it would've given them more time to expand on the storyline and character development. Another thing I noticed was that the lead character is really well connected with the world around him, as is revealed as the story progresses. Everyone just seems to know him. Apparently he used to be "on the team" with those guys building the rocket. The main villain is his mortal enemy. He and the ambassador have a history. It's all clearly trying to build up the mythology behind this story. Gary, however, seems to have other ideas. The tagline for the film is "If you thought Max was mad… wait 'til you meet Trace!" Which is all well and good, but not once do you see him looking more than slightly annoyed, as if the warlord kidnapping his sister and sending her off to rape camp is little more than a minor nuisance. And don't get me started on Lynda Weismeyer. All she seems to do throughout the whole film is escape, get captured, scream and show off her credentials. And when she finally does something meaningful, she gets gunned down. Twice. Still, there is a lot to love the film for. Linda Grovenor plays her turn as the psychic Spike with this wonderful sense of warmth and freshness that, in a film set on a wasted Earth, makes her seem incredibly rare. From the moment she first appears on-screen, you just feel for her. She's a wonderful addition to the cast and when the big fight at the climax comes around, she doesn't just stay in the sidelines. Oh no, she really kicks ass, with nothing but a knife. She gives the villains what for in a way that should be right up there with Summer Glau's Reaver fight at the end of Serenity. Grovenor really shines in this role and they were truly lucky to have her on the film. And on the flipside of kick-ass heroines, Laura Banks' bounty hunter Stinger, while maybe not a stand-out against the likes of Princess Leia, Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley, she could certainly hold her own. She's more than a match for Trace, a really well-rounded character who seems to be genuinely conflicted. And the fact that SHE ALSO HANDLES A BIRD-OF-PREY just makes her seem ALL THE MORE BADASS. Beat that, Virginia Hey. And then there's the cars. Trace delivers fiery justice from the roof-mounted flamethrower on his gorgeous jet-black '64 Ford Mustang. Funny how everyone in the future drives muscle cars

They are shown not just once but often in a 30 minutes period so if that's not your cup of tea,avoid this film!This of course is a total MAD MAX/ROAD WARRIOR rip off featuring a little bit of underground action with monster rejects from THE TIME MACHINE!The other girls in the film are Laura Banks (stinger)a relatively flat chested action woman and Linda Grovenor(Spike), a girl who can read minds. Laura has a very brief topless scene,Linda doesn't.Gary Watkins(trace) is the mad max of this film. He does cruel things like burning people with a flame thrower but we're so caught up in this comic book adventure (even though it's not very good!) that we just don't want to analyze the cruelty of the act of burning people alive! That would slow the pleasure of the action and it would leave the film without a hero!Some might say that this is a cheap effort but you still must praise the works of the stunt people and effects people.There are many explosions and that flame thrower comes very close to the stuntmen who catch on fire.There is a sense of danger and you're asking yourself,how did they do it?(in a manner of keeping everybody safe.)So in conclusion,it's mostly the girls that makes this film watchable and we can only thank the filmmakers that it lasts under 90 minutes!