“Don’t call me babe!”

Justin’s Rating: PoolMan, this bud’s for you!

Justin’s Review: So PoolMan and I once caught this movie on the SciFi channel when he was down to visit. Actually, if we’re being honest, we just watched the last half of the movie, but I managed to wade through the intricate plot to glean the pertinent details, which were:

1. Pamela Lee-Sometimes-Anderson is a very angry lady, possibly because she is being forced to wear an ill-fitting corset. She wants everyone’s respect, even though her name is “Barb Wire” and she flies off the handle at anyone for any reason. Really, I really can’t take anyone seriously who is named after a battlefield defense system (maybe her siblings called Mary Mines, Peter Punji Sticks, and Clara Claymore).
2. Her main friend is this blind guy who operates by some sort of advanced sonar system, since he zips across rooms without a cane and never bumps into anything once. He also dodges bullets and knows instantly when dirty evidence is planted in a secret location a full room away. Of course, he is chosen in that dirty movie lottery to die in order to give the hero a moment of weepy contemplation and an afternoon of revenge.
3. The bad guys look like Nazis with sledgehammers. This being the future, I do appreciate the retro-mob mentality.
4. This movie is set in yet another post-apocalyptic future, and I believe I speak for all moviegoers when I say “STOP with the DEPRESSING post-apocalyptic set designs already!” When you’ve seen one abandoned, graffiti-strewn rat pit, seen them all. For once, I want to see a world improved by the dropping of a few hundred nuclear warheads. Ooh, bright and shiny everything!
5. Among other plot developments is a really fat gang leader who lives in the shovel of a bulldozer, some contact lenses, a debit card (useless in such a future, since they never show a 7-11), and long, lingering camera shots on cleavage.

Unless the first half of the movie was crafted with the help of Martin Scorsese, I’m pretty confident the entire film is a gigantic piece of lower intestine tract — wandering hopelessly through the dark and filled with crap. Barb spends a large portion of her time scowling, and her eyes frankly freak me out. What’s her problem, really? Will the rebel group, who seek the restoration of the Starbucks chain, prevail? Will Barb PLEASE wash her face? Will I never watch this movie again?

Mike’s Rating: I apologize for the lateness of this review, I had to shower for two weeks after watching this.

Mike’s Review: Pam Anderson is some kind of genetic experiment to create some kind of life-sized, self-animated Barbie doll. With the faux bosoms, spray-on tan, and bleached hair, she is such a freaking Barbie doll that if I ever were to watch her much-tauted sex-tape, I’m sure I’d be amazed to learn she was anatomically correct. Unfortunately for the viewing public (which thanks to my laziness and Justin’s cruelty streak, now includes me), Pam is big star, which boggles the mind as a Barbie is actually capable of expressing more emotion. Now I appreciate that someone, somewhere finds this Frankensteinian bimbo attractive, but it may be the most honest statement I’ve ever made when I say that Pamela Anderson seriously does NOTHING for me.

So after the first five minutes of a grueling credits sequence — where we’re forced to watch Barb Wire topless on a stage, being hosed down for no reason whatever by two guys in suits — rather than being titillated, I was bored, annoyed and more than a little creeped out. So then she puts her clothes back on and the movie begins in earnest. We learn that she’s not really a stripper (bare breasts notwithstanding) but is actually a mercenary of some kind trying to rescue a kidnapped girl. Following that, she kills a guy with her stiletto heel. I’m not making this up. All during this, Barb has a voiceover narration explaining exactly what the audience just read in the opening scroll not ten minutes ago.

Great, not only are the filmmakers mentally devoid, but they think the audience is too. Honestly, if anybody willingly saw this movie I’m going to have to assume they’re right.

So acting-wise, everybody sucks. It’s like a contest to see who can emote the least. Pam wins, hands down. The plot is so full of holes, one can easily imagine that it was typed on swiss cheese. For example: the main antagonists are for some reason purposefully dressing like Nazis. No regime originating from THIS country would ever be that un-PC.

So here’s the thing that really cheeses me off about casting Pam Anderson here. It bugs me how we get a non-threatening, strictly D-list actress playing a character that’s supposed to be loaded with pathos. She simply can’t pull it off. Now I appreciate that women are empowered and I have no problem with a female protagonist that kicks ass. I’m a lifelong Buffy fan for cripe’s sake. But can’t we do better than this bimbo? Girls that look like Pamela Anderson don’t join the army and then become mercenaries. They become, well, Pamela Anderson.

Ultimately, Barb Wire is an unbelievably trite, boring, hypocritical, seriously flawed attempt at an action flick, based on a comic that wasn’t that good to begin with, and starring a pair of fake boobs with a bad actress attached to them. If you’re going to watch this, be aware that the message being relayed here seems to be: “If a girl objectifies herself, it’s really empowerment! Try this at home, girls! Teehee!”. This could almost be a plus if it were done self-referentially and tongue in cheek as a satire, but from start to finish the creators expect us to fully take seriously a walking blonde bimbo cliche playing an empowered, independent anti-heroine.

“Don’t call me babe” indeed.