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the audience applauded

Excellent but underrated film

A Masterpiece!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I remember being all jazzed about this film coming out because it had Luke Skywalker in it as a bad guy, then have a vague memory of watching it but having no recollection if it was any good or not. Seeing it now, almost one hundred years later, I can see why I can't remember much about it. It's not a bad film as such, but…there's not too much going on.The premise is good though. This film was made in the eighties so there's a post-apocalyptic setting, but this is also the late eighties so we've got an environmental post-apocalyptic vibe going on where mankind's treating of the world has come back to bite them, with huge environmental changes resulting in a huge valley running for thousands of miles across the land, which has this constant wind blowing through it like Earth is letting out one continuous never ending fart that people live in.One of those folks living in the fart is Bill Paxton, some kind of salvage tradesman who gets caught up with Mark Hamill, a policeman escorting murderer Bob Peck. Paxton sees dollar signs (or whatever currency they have in this world) as Peck comes with a mighty large bounty on his head. So Paxton steals him and they off into the possibly eggy fart of the Slipstream.It's like one of those buddy movies only with a lot of wind involved. Bizarrely, and I'm not sure if I'm right or not, but a lot of the violence seems to have been trimmed or not filmed at all. Just check out the shootout in the woods where a couple of shots are fired and then we abruptly cut to Mark Hammil burying the bodies. Same goes for when he and his sidekick launch an assault on the bunker where F. Murray Abraham is living. Maybe this was intentional and the film does have a lighthearted tone about it. Who knows? On the plus side, we do have a great performance from Bob Peck (the best thing about Jurassic Park too) as the android whose not quite sure what to make of having freedom. He just seems to tower above the rest of the actors here. Ben Kingsley also appears in a fairly pointless cameo. So does Robbie Coltrane but then he's got a cameo in every British film made in the eighties.So, it's a weirdly disjointed but well meaning mess with some great actors involved. And Bill Paxton. It's in the public domain as well so if you're curious it isn't going to cost you anything to see it.

I was lucky to see this in the theater in Japan. The title it was given was Kaze no Wakusei, which means Planet of the Wind. This was very interesting to me because I was very interested in Dune which was titled Suna no Wakusei in Japan, which means the Planet of the Sand. Since this was also a science fiction film, I thought it was some how related just a tiny bit. So I was very excited sitting in the theater waiting for it to start, expecting an unofficial sequel to Dune. This film was nothing like Dune, instead we basically get a film where the main characters are being chased by two ruthless bounty hunters. There were many memorable scenes in this film that still swarm in my imagination, perhaps because it's like a story I would expect to read in Heavy Metal magazine. The main character is like a fast talking con man, and it made me angry to see him flirt with the female bounty hunter. Mark Hamill does a great job as the ruthless male bounty hunter and the poison dart guns and use of antidotes was brilliant. The aircraft is very memorable, the kite scene was really bizarre but cool, the scene where a whole family is in the giant hot tub scene was a bit disturbing but once again another memorable scene. I really liked the scenes where they were flying through the valleys, for some reason I kept associating this film with the Orinoco Flow song from Enya, maybe in Japan they had the trailer with that song and it fit like a glove for me. The story kind of drastically changes when they arrive to the underground society, and then it comes to a rather abrupt ending which is definitely not the normal Hollywood formula. I like that this film isn't super violent, filled with gore. Seems to have a nomadic feel to it, I think the way it does it's cinema story telling is a success, and very underrated. Because the main character isn't the toughest guy in the film, I kind of see parallels to Ralph Fiennes character in Strange Days. I have to say that I enjoyed this film more than Strange Days, which is another very interesting sci-fi film.

Umm, this movie is way under-rated. I put it far ahead of most of the crap I have watched in the past ten years. Ben Kingsley, Mark Hamill, Bill Paxton I think his name is were all great. Plus, how about a unique post-apocalyptic scenario? We've already had nuclear war and a desert wasteland, also the world entirely flooded by water after the polar ice caps melt. This one has a crazy rejoining of the continents and several nasty wind-currents that blow around the planet's surface. I'd say that's original. There are several other well-known actors in this film, including a bunch of dudes in a hot-tub, although I can't exactly name them.

I couldn't agree more (previous post re: underrated) this movie was a truly entertaining surprise and I have been trying to find it ever since my husband and i rented it one night after pretty much working our way thru the other rentals at our local video store. Our expectations were not particularly high but we ended up really enjoying this film. The premise is not particularly new - post apocalyptic and all...but the approach and the vision presented of earth at this point is truly refreshing. I think it's a shame that it just didn't get the kind of studio support and exposure that it deserved. I definitely recommend it - you won't be sorry, it's just a very interesting, very well put together movie.