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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: March 3rd, 2015.
Director: Giuliano Carnimeo
Cast: Robert Iannucci, Eduardo Fajardo, Anna Orso, Luca Venantini
Year: 1983
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The Movie:
"A Futuristic Film Of Survival!"
One of the coolest Italian post-nuke Mad Max rip offs, Exterminators Of The Year 3000 is set, maybe not so shockingly, in the year 3000. A lot has happened in the future, the biggie being that nukes have laid waste to the Earth and everything seems to have more or less become a desert. What's left of humanity has become upset with the man in charge (Eduardo Fajardo), their main bone of contention being that there just isn't enough water to go around. He's sent out a guy with a tanker truck to try and solve that problem, but so far? No dice.
Weeks later, the guy has not returned, which causes his wife Linda (Anna Orso) and young son Tommy (Luca Venantini) to grow understandably concerned as to his whereabouts. Did he get killed? Did he find water and decide to horde it all? Nobody knows! So another recon missions is stage and this time Tommy stows away on the tanker, hoping he'll find his dad - but then the second mission is attacked by a crazy guy named Crazy Bull (Fernando Bilbao) and his gang of equally crazy guys, Tommy is left the lone survivor. Armed only with a map to a spring, he heads out into the wasteland all by his lonesome but soon befriends a guy named Alien (Robert Iannucci), a tough man who was once affiliated with that nasty gang but who is currently trapped inside a wrecked cop car. Tommy saves Alien who in turn agrees to help him find a tanker and the spring so he can bring water back to his people. Will Alien just kick this annoying kid out into the desert all by his lonesome and steal the map to the spring? Will Alien's ex-girlfriend, Trash (Alicia Moro), show up and cause multiple problems? Will Crazy Bull basically steal Lord Humungous' schtick? Will mutants show up?
No spoilers!
Directed by Giuliano Carnimeo, the same man who brought you Ratman, Exterminators Of The Year 3000 isn't very good but it is a lot of fun. It really does borrow a LOT from the Mad Max series and does so with what would seem to be a considerably smaller budget and with way less style, but it is fast paced, exciting and violent. It's a low budget action movie that hits all the right notes and offers up a likeable anti-hero type in Iannucci's Alien. He's tough, he's out for number one… but you just know underneath that tough exterior is a man with a heart of gold, a man who will risk life and limb to save a small child from the gangs of roving exterminators that exist in the year 3000. Yeah, he's a really predictable character, a walking-talking cliché of an action hero if ever there was one, but Iannucci pulls it off. We want Alien to win the day, save the kid and get the water thanks to the guy's charisma.
The rest of the cast are fun here as well. Anna Orso is easy on the eyes and sorely underused while Luca Venantini is annoying in the way you expect (or somehow even wind up wanting) a child actor to be in a movie like this. Alicia Moro is catty and skanky and greta while Fernando Bilbao is just over the top and completely ridiculous as the lead villain here.
As far as the action sequences go, the stunts in the movie will no doubt be the main draw. They're handled well, with cars flipping and flying all over the place and no shortage of explosions large and small. Lots of shooting and punching and racing through the desert keeps the pace quick and gives the film a nice rhythm while the production values are… close enough. This is seriously fun stuff.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Exterminators Of The Year 3000 arrives on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 1.85.1. This is a decent enough transfer with good but not mind-blowing fine detail. Color reproduction seems pretty accurate here, so the dusty landscapes over which the action takes place look appropriately arid, the dingy and dirty vehicles look just as flat and muted as the should and the reds of the blood and the blues of the sky contrast nicely against these earth tones. Some minor print damage shows up and some scenes look a bit softer than others but all in all this offers a nice HD upgrade.
The only audio option on the disc is an English language DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track. There are no problems with the lossless track here. The dialogue is easy enough to follow and the sound effects and score are properly balanced and have a good amount of oomph behind them!
Extras are carried from the previous Code Red DVD release, starting with an audio commentary track with the film's star, Robert Iannucci, moderated by Code Red's William Olsen, who starts things off by complaining about sales of post-nuke films and then making fun of the movie. Once he gets that out of his system and this track gets going it isn't bad at all as they cover the locations, what stunts Iannucci did himself and which stunts the stuntmen did, working on a low budget, the different cars used in various scenes, his wardrobe, how he was treated by the Italians while working on the film, the various plot holes in the film and quite a bit more.
From there, Iannucci shows up again in an interview that runs eighteen minutes entitled Boogie Down With The Alien. This is a bit more focused in that it allows the actor to talk about how he got into acting, his modelling career and his work in this film.
Rounding out the extras are a trailer for the feature, two TV spots, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
Exterminators Of The Year 3000 is goofy action packed fun in the grand 'Italian knock off' tradition and Shout! Factory has done a fine job bringing this slice of post-apocalyptic chaos to Blu-ray. Hopefully we'll see releases similar to this one in the future!
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
