The Future Depends On One Man.
Starring: Dolph Lundgren, Sherri Alexander, Joe Michael Burke, Rebecca Cross, Terry Bigcharles, Brook Parker, Julliano Merr
Director: Sheldon Lettich
2001 | 95 Minutes | PG-13
“Don’t drink that milk! – Captain Nick Preston
Dolph Lundgren + post apocalyptic = AWESOME!!! Right? WRONG!
After a massive earthquake destroys California, Captain Nick Preston (Dolph Lundgren) leads his last couple soldiers in a fight for survival. When they find out that one of their own has been captured by an escaped death row inmate turned prison savior they plan their attack to save him.
I will just cut to the chase here. The Last Warrior feels like a bunch of random clips from other movies put together. Kinda like a Godfrey Ho movie. Many scenes seem to just be leftovers from other B-Movies. It’s like the director didn’t even aim high with his reference material.
An early shot is the obligatory Dolph & Co. running away from an explosion that is clearly too far away to ever hurt them. I guess I can forgive that.
Another scene seems right out of a B-Movie (and left field) where a pack of wild dogs chases a busty blonde out of a make shift shower complete with barks and growls from dogs that clearly seen to not be barking or growling. She isn’t naked though. Don’t get your hopes up. Apparently the shoestring budget couldn’t afford a nudity bonus.
Follow that up with a woman trying to tame a horse. When the horse takes off she gets tangled in his reins and dragged toward a cliff. After Captain Preston saves her she tells him “You shoulda left me alone, I almost had him.” You were being dragged by your ankle!!! Thank Dolph! He saved your F’ing life!
You getting a feel for where this is going?
Even the bad guy, Jesus Carrera, is a rehash. He looks like a cross between Ben Stiller in Anchorman and Ben Stiller in Dodgeball. But it isn’t played by Ben Stiller. I’m not sure if this would have been better or worse if Stiller had been involved but it sure would have been cool to see Stiller exploded at the end.
Then of course there is his high pitched, Weird Al Yankovic looking prison talk show host sidekick. The less said about him the better.
Another major problem that The Last Warrior has is that it tries to incorporate too many different ideas into one movie. Memory loss, earthquake, post-apocalyptic world, atomic disease, a prison, a damsel in distress, a missing pilot and so many other random things that just didn’t need to be included. Keep it simple stupid. It seems like a group of buddies with 3 million dollars burning a whole in their pocket hot boxed a bunch of weed and just started throwing ideas out there and then actually put it to film. The only problem with that theory is that it was directed by SHELDON LETTICH, a generally reliable action director. What happened!?!
Most of the story is only able to be comprehended because of the narrator (Dolph Lundgren) basically spelling out what is going on. If it weren’t for him this would just be a random collection of poorly acted, poorly directed scenes.
The narration also attempts to explain why this military “base” is really just a bunch of old military vehicles and junk out in the middle of nowhere. It couldn’t just be a miniscule budget could it?
The acting is terrible by everyone involved. Not really shocking since Dolph Lundgren is the only name actor and he clearly knows he just showed up for the paycheck.
I love Dolph Lundgren and I love bad post-apocalyptic movies but this is just too bad for me to enjoy. Nothing original, completely phoned in acting on top of a poorly thrown together script. There just isn’t a single reason I can think of to watch The Last Warrior again or to recommend anyone to watch a first time.
Action Movie Fanatix 
I disagree. I have never been a fan of Dolph Lundgren. That said, I happened to catch him on The Last Warrior and, I must say, I was surprised and intrigued. It was his sense of humor that won me over and how it was conveyed on film that has changed me from automatically passing over any film he might star in to giving it a go, taking a chance in seeing if his wry sense of humor was just a fluke or if he engenders it in all roles.
Thanks for commenting!
We will have to agree to disagree on The Last Warrior but I will say that if you enjoyed Dolph’s sense of humor here, there are a LOT better examples of it in some of his other movies. I really don’t think he gets credit for how funny he can be.