Search - Dream Warrior on DVD

I wish it had only been a dream

Shantell Powell | Kitchener, ON, Canada | 02/09/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Dream Warrior has a misleading title, as well as a completely deceiving cover. There are no dream warriors. There are no dreams. There are, however, a few people you may be able to see as warriors, I suppose. The bearded, chainmail dude wielding a spiked cudgel on the cover of the box is nowhere to be seen in the movie, though. In fact, there is no chain mail, and there are no spiked cudgels. What we do have is a very low budget Croatian film featuring Aliens' Bishop as the bad guy, Isaac Hayes (Shaft!) as a wandering mystic, and Sherilyn Fenn as a sort of budget Liv Tyler. As far as I can tell, the movie is a retelling of Mad Max with a few dashes of Waterworld thrown in for bad measure.

One of my favourite scenes is the two men enter, one man leaves bit which takes place when our hero (named Rage, of all things) is captured by a band of ravening whiteface goths. No explanation is ever made for what the Village of the Goths has to do with anything, but maybe that's part of the movie's (only) charm."

'Dream' and 'Warrior' Not Included

Edward Lee | 01/08/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Throughout the late 1950's and early 1960's, motion picture studios capitalized on the popularity of film by churning out hundreds of B movies. Most of these are forgettable, but, every so often, a picture managed to capture the imagination of an audience and, consequently, turned a tidy profit. As digital filmmaking technology in the 21st century continues to become available to the booming population, any cinemaphile armed with a camcorder believes he's the next Spielberg, Scorsese, or - could it be - George Lucas. The resulting explosion of horror, thriller, or low-grade science fiction titles available at your corner Blockbuster Video continues to grow. In an era of modern filmmaking when any Tom, Dick, or Harry possesses affordable technology to make a motion picture, it only stands to reason that there will eventually be more folks making motion pictures than those who should truly be allowed to make motion pictures, and rarely has there been better evidence than that of the direct-to-DVD schlock, "Dream Warrior, " also known as "A Man Called Rage."

Rage (played by an unshaven Daniel Goddard) is no ordinary man. Though he's blessed with 'Men's Health' spokesmodel good looks, he's little more than a mutant with superhuman abilities ... abilities that start and stop with the gift of grunting and flexing and throwing a grenade on cue. That, and he packs a mean air pistol. He's on the run from Parish (played by ever-reliable and, apparently, always affordable Lance Henricksen), the future's 'man of God' who wants to wipe the impure mutants - like Rage - off the face of the planet ... if he could just find then all hiding outside his single building. But when Rage is rescued by a beautiful mutant (the lovely Sherilyn Fenn of 'Twin Peaks' fame), he throws caution to the wind in favor of saving Parish's infant son from the evil leader's nefarious plan ... which never quite gets fully explained.

Made in a derelict warehouse with wooded exteriors shot a stone's throw away, "Dream Warrior" presents the story of an uninteresting apocalyptic tomorrow not unlike the world seen in the 'Mad Max' films only with much less desert: shabbily-dressed survivors - normal in every sense of the word save their psychic abilities to hurl lightning, heal the injured, and sense water (woohoo!) if they're not dressing 'Goth' and watching men fight to the death on top of a truck bed - march through the woods in search of 'The River,' a place of legend where mankind's last hope for survival can be realized. Of course - with a plot this thin - you know it's only a matter of time before all of these characters are thrown together. Blacksploitation legend Isaac Hayes even makes an appearance as a shadowy religious loner sent to explain it all to the mutants because they apparently don't have enough sense to figure it out for themselves.

At best, the film is a guilty pleasure. At worst, the film takes pleasure at being just plain guilty. "Dream Warrior" boasts no real dreams nor any real warriors, and it takes just over 91 minutes for Rage to discover that he's Parish's firstborn, to help kill his maniacal father, and to march off into the woods intent on saving the world. From what? We're never told.

Written and directed by Zachary Weintraub, "Warrior" proves definitively that there is one too many Weintraub's working in the film industry."

If you like movies made in backyards by 10 year olds....

cakewalk | Pennsylvania, USA | 09/12/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"...then you are going to love this movie!

Same as many others I was lured in by the spiked club-wielding, armor-plated lunatic on the front cover. It's obvious pride at being a B-Grade movie just fooled me into thinking it was going to be a fun little apocalyptic nightmarish movie. Well, the nightmare part was certainly true.

The only possible way you can you enjoy this movie is to watch it with some fellow Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans while getting drunk. By the end you won't be able to feel the pain that this puddle of monkey drool was designed to inflict on the movie-renting public. Seriously, let me lay this out for you:
the acting is bad, the sfx are done with Photoshop 4.0, the plot is indecipherable, and the sets establish new thresholds for "cheap" (only cost as much as a few citations for trespassing).

According to the future as told by this moview, there are few things the post-apocalyptic future has no shortage of (oh an asteriod hit Earth and apparently caused lots of green grass, trees, and blue skies to appear--yes awful I know)... I present these things to you in no particular order as a way of summarizing the plot in "Dream Warrior": white cotton thongs, gasoline, cheesy-motorcylces, vintage trucks, cardboard boxes, white facepaint, black eyeliner, trench-coats, scarves, makeshift pistol weapons, grenades, mobs of pasty, bored-looking extras, and women who want to sleep with Lance Henriksen.

Keeping in turn, here is the list of things that ARE in short supply in the future: ballistic weaponry, cars with doors, buildings with walls, men who can throw a punch, women who can act, plot, narrative, character development, and apparently also things that float.

Lance Henriksen obviously owed somebody some favors (perhaps the writer is his actual illegitimate child, you know like in the movie?). He is at least delivers the nasty tripe that are his assigned lines very well. Isaac Hayes is good but his character is basically random, inane, and confusing. Though admittedly after a few drinks he's the most awesome thing about this movie. His best move comes when he uses his "mutant power" (his sudden movements can make people flinch) on the goth people (the second most awesome thing about this movie).

Well bad plots, writing, lighting, sets, characters, stunts, special effects, endings, acting, and directing aside this moview was worth at least 1 star for the partial nudity and and the random yet satsifying inclusion of Isaac Hayes in the film."

Sleep warriors

golden_horse | mainframe/subroutines | 09/06/2005

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I picked this movie up in a bargain bin at my local video store hoping for some cheap thrills. I had fairly high hopes, considering the post apocalyptic setting, the presence of the awesome Lance Henriksen and a cover featuring a guy with a spikey club. What I got instead was what seems like the rough cut of a rejected sci-fi channel pilot. The story has no momentum and meanders in circles never really getting anywhere (slowly) for the better part of it's running time, while trying in vain to jazz things up with endless flashbacks or visions or something. Action scenes are few and far between and when they do materialize are fleeting and lamely staged. What you DO get a lot of is people walking through the woods, characters pontificating about nonsensical mysticism, a girl healing people repeatedly (this consists of her running her hands sloooowly over them while NewAge music plays on the soundtrack) and Lance Henriksen brooding around in his lair that looks like the Soho loft of a cocaine addicted art dealer. No exageration at one point I began fast forwarding and watched several minutes of people walking through the woods talking (and that was at triple speed). This movie takes itself way too seriously with nothing to back it up. Not even some prime nudity can save this somnambulistic waste of 1's and 0's."