Very Cool!!!

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Nothing in common with the book by Roger Zelazny except the title and a cross-country expedition. And even the book was one of Zelazny's weakest, which he admitted. In book, story starts years after the war. Reason for expedition cross-country change. Destination change. Characters added. Principal character drastically changed. Events along route change. Ending had no relationship with original story. Star of the film became the Landmaster versus the actual story and characters. This movie shows how Hollywood Sci-fi movie budgets of 1950-2000 period usually influenced most Sci-fi scripts, usually for the worse. Putting special effects ahead of the story.

Damnation Alley was quite an unlucky movie seemingly, it was put out with the idea that it would be another profitable sci-fi b-movie but unfortunately for it, a few weeks before it was released a movie called Star Wars was released which changed the rules for sci-fi forever more. To be honest though, I kind of like this one. It has its own significant factors too, for instance it's quite early in the cycle of post-apocalypse movies - the Mad Max series certainly seems to have borrowed some of its ideas – and so I think it's fair to say that its core look and feel went on to be used in quite a few similar movies in the 80's. Its story starts with a nuclear war devastating the world, leaving a small band of survivors in a desert outpost. After a while they are forced to set off on a journey to try and find other survivors in an all-terrain vehicle.This one has a plot that boils down to a succession of set-pieces strung together along a hazardous trek. It's essentially a road movie...without a road. Along the way our heroes battle giant scorpions, swarms of flesh-eating cockroaches, mutant feral humans and they endure an electrical storm. They also pick up a woman and an incredibly annoying teenage boy. The film is chock full of corny dialogue and charmingly poor special effects but it remains entertaining nevertheless with good pacing and enough variety of events to ensure things remain interesting. It has to be admitted though that it does end with a very poorly conceived conclusion that felt like it was tagged on because the original idea was too expensive. But on the whole, I found this to be good fun mainly, certainly a fair bit better than its poor reputation suggests.

If you have never seen this film, don't bother. Read the book, one of the best post apocalyptic stories written. The special effects in this film would have embarrassed a 1930's Flash Gordon episode. I've seen some reviews that try to defend the SFX by saying it's an old film, hey 1977? What other film came out that year? Oh yeah, Star Wars! You can't say the SFX in that were bad. Acting, it seems that it was such a low budget film that they could not afford to pay the actors to act, just say the unconvincing lines. If it didn't try to latch on to Roger Zelazny's story by using his title and nothing else it would pass as a slightly below average B-movie. Could only give it one star as it is such a bad adaptation of the book, even Roger Zelazny hated it.

Throughout the beginning of the last half of the 20th century, multiple films have been made that were based off of novels that took place in dystopic wastelands after nuclear fallout. This was all due to the U.S. and Russia being two of the biggest super powers at the time and were currently having a cold war over it. Well this science fiction genre film is no different in that aspect. But everything else about it isn't entertaining at all.Damnation Alley (1977) is a film adaptation of novelist Roger Zelazny's short story of the same name. And honestly, I think Zelazny's work was more enjoyable than this. This whole movie is just one giant traveling expedition. There is no plot. Did the writers bother to even jot down the plot or did they just create dialog for the characters? I mean Lukas Heller, the screenwriter from The Dirty Dozen (1967) was on the crew list! Did he become lazy and decide to let Alan Sharp do all the work? And that's just the plot, let's dive into the characters.The storyline follows Major Eugene Denton played by George Peppard and a small band of misfit characters. That's right, John Hannibal Smith from the original A-Team (1983) stars in this film. Unfortunately, he did not make a wise choice to join this slog of a mess. Along with Peppard is a young Jan-Michael Vincent, who earlier starred in the classic The Mechanic (1972), Paul Winfield who later would play a role in Schwarzenegger's The Terminator (1984) and even Jackie Earle Haley has a part as a homeless kid. Yes! Even the actor who plays Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) remake and Rorschach from Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009) plays in this movie.Oh and I have no idea how this girl named Janice (Dominique Sanda) even held her own at Las Vegas inside a gambling building with a bunch of sand. Not to mention but she's just there to be an annoying damsel in distress. Not needed. But enough about her. Here there's barely anything for these characters to expand on. What's made up for lost time, is filler with either traveling through wasteland or trying to survive radioactive storms. Isn't it amazing how well the cast was put together even before half these actors were famous and still this movie couldn't get much of anything right? Truly sad.The writers are really to blame for this film. Every ten minutes it would be a reoccurring plot point. Travel a little, stop a little, and every time they stopped, they'd either run into someone or something. Sometimes it's human, other times they're over-sized killer animals. It's just lame. Oh and let's not forget that every time they stop, Jan- Michael Vincent has to pull out his trusty motorcycle to solve all his problems. He uses it for everything! Not even composer Jerry Goldsmith could save this movie. Never have I heard a score so weird that it I couldn't tell what it was trying to represent. The music sounds like a cross between a video game and real orchestra music. Also it didn't help that for majority of the time, the music was absent. The score is so minimal it is barely even used in any of the important scenes. Even the introduction had me sitting awkward. Nuclear warheads are blowing up the country and there's no music going on at all?! I mean, that's what it would be like in real life but this is a movie! It's supposed to enhance that experience.The only points I do give it, is for having the really cool looking landmaster vehicle and a couple good special effects. The effects were standard but SOME of the way the sky's were constructed. They were rather neat. I was more interested in that than the story or characters. The landmaster was also cool. Twelve wheels, rockets, could even be used in the ocean and an extended cabin? What a fortress. That is definitely a vehicle that could withstand nuclear fallout. Besides this, the film is a wreck unfortunately.This science fiction film adaptation is a boring trek about a story that's not even being told. The whole film is just random events put together.