MOVIE REVIEW: Neon City (1991)
As I listen to the news of war, rumors of war, climate change, and open violations against humanity, I am reminded things could be worse. There was a time when we were concerned with burning a hole in the ozone layer with our pollution; the world only changed a little since then. Ecological realization will come sooner than later for our world, and we need it more than ever — but how will we be able to know what to do? I remember there was a big environmental movement in the early 1990s (born from data presented in the 1970s) trying to show us that we could change the future by consuming less meat, and recycling. It would have worked BACK THEN, but nobody wanted to listen. Many of us were still high off the excesses of the 1980s …at least that’s what the movies and TV showed us. The only way we would listen to important information was if it came in the form of a dramatic presentation — like D.A.R.E and Truth Initiative did for drugs and smoking, respectively. Many of us still continue the now-useless veganism and recycling theater into the 21st Century thanks to the 90’s childhood training of the animated adventures of “Captain Planet and the Planeteers.” We also got our share of cautionary movies, thanks to the 1995 Kevin Costner cult classic Waterworld and this lesser-known 1991 western-inspired tale, called Neon City. I had never heard of it before, but it stars Michael Ironside and Prince’s protégé Vanity so I had to give it a look!
By 2053, the world has changed in the wake of environmental catastrophe: the ozone layer was destroyed in an attempt to save it, using lasers created by the scientist Dr. Xander. Now the world is plagued with atmospheric phenomena like acid rain, “brights” (a type of lensing effect created by photo-reflective pollutants that burns and blinds anyone caught in its area of effect) and “Xander clouds” (some sort of yellow asphyxiating poison fog). Settlements in the world struggle and suffer at the whim of these strange hazards, save for the city of peace and prosperity almost everyone’s trying to reach: Neon City.
There are outliers who skirt the edges of civilization like Reno (Vanity, Never Too Young to Die, Berry Gordy’s the Last Dragon, Action Jackson]), a woman on the run from the law. She is branded with a red star, marking her as an arsonist, which makes no difference when confronted with “skins” — road bandits rendered skinless by genetic mutation — who don’t care about the reward on her head. The skins plan on having her for dinner when they start dropping like flies, thanks to the quick and accurate shooting of the bounty hunter named Stark (Michael Ironside, Starship Troopers, “V: The Final Battle” [TV-NBC], Terminator: Salvation, Total Recall [1987]). Stark knows Reno for what she is and takes her into custody to Jericho, a city built in the remnants of an abandoned amusement park.
Stark knows the local law authority, Captain Raymond (director Monte Markham, Jake Speed, Airport ‘77]) with whom he has a bad history: they both used to be Rangers — a form of frontier lawman — until Raymond and the other Rangers led by Jenkins (Jesse Bennet, Hangar 18 [1980], Secrets of the Bible [1992]) killed Stark’s son for being a mutant. Stark never forgave them and has something special planned for Jenkins, if he ever gets his hands on him. Raymond won’t let that happen, so he sabotages Stark’s vehicle and incapacitates him to travel on a transport handcuffed to Reno. This transport is headed to Neon City and piloted by Bulk (former NFL star Lyle Alzado, Destroyer [1988], “Learning the Ropes” [TV-CTV], Club Fed [1990], Zapped Again! [1990]), a former Ranger who was sent to prison by Stark for beating a man to death with his bare hands. The transport holds a collection of passengers with their own reasons for going to the fabled Neon City:
- Sandy (Valerie Wildman, The Last Sin Eater, “Dangerous Women” [TV-syndicated], “Days of Our Lives” [TV-ABC]), Stark’s ex-wife who’s “getting married to a nice rich man” in Neon City
- Dickie (Richard Saunders, “WKRP in Cincinnati” [TV-CBS], “Inhumanoids” [TV-animated], Valley Girl [1983]), a Vaudeville clown on his way to an audition
- “Mr. Wing” (Arsenio Trinidad, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Darkman [1990], The Shadow [1994], “Vanishing Son” [TV-the WB]), an old man who keeps to himself…and is not who he pretends to be
- “Tom” (Nick Klar, Talking Walls, “James Dean” [TV movie]), a serial murderer and drug addict pretending to be a doctor
- Twink Talaman (Juliet Landau, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” [TV-the CW], Ed Wood]), a sheltered debutante under escort to see her very rich and influential father.
Their adventures take them across the ruined badlands of the Western Territories, where the ruins of civilization — both buildings and people — are laid bare. Eventually minds are changed, secrets are revealed, they make it to Neon City, and the future of the world has hope…if only a little bit for a little while. Considering the brutality of their world, it’s got to be enough.
<<SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT>>
This movie is thought-provoking, and you really do want to see everyone make it. The setting is near hellish from the cold and desolation. But what really ground my gears was the depiction of sexual assault and incitement of sexual relations. A product of its time that cannot be excused, Neon City depicts two things that might not work well for modern viewers. For starters, when Tom attempts to rape Reno, she fends him off and moves to the other room with more people. When the others asked why she came in agitated from the room with Tom on her heels, Reno says it was nothing only to have Tom take advantage and turn it on her. Tom said her attitude was from not taking rejection very well. On the flip side, Stark followed up with her and we learn Reno’s backstory on how she got her red star.
Finding out Reno protected her foster siblings from abusive foster parents by burning the foster parents alive was an incredibly dark reveal. However, the immediate need for carnal attention from Stark — the man she was prepared to kill to escape — is weird. Even stranger is the idea that post-coital, Reno’s making plans to run off with Stark. It’s not so much Stockholm syndrome as it is very Monster’s Ball…and I ain’t with it.
This isn’t the first script to do this as badly, using trauma as a vehicle: Cherry 2000 has Melanie Griffith gets a concussion from RPG blasts and when she’s being examined by her companion, she’s OK with making out when she previously expressed disgust with David Andrews’ character. It happens again in Robotjox, when Ann-Marie Johnson is concussed after nearly dying to the enemy pilot, and Gary Graham goes in to check on her. The moment her helmet is off, she shoves her tongue in his mouth. Everyone reacts to trauma differently, but this is VERY WEIRD!
I also understand the male-dominated writer’s rooms of the day, but this movie was written by a woman (Ann Lewis Hamilton’s pseudonym is “Buck Finch”) trying to get film scripts published. Still it’s some of the most unrealistic and unappealing film scenarios committed to film. And I know there are people who are adults now that have never seen R-rated movies with sexual release and don’t want to…but I have seen “Skinamax” flicks and the actors in those were far more natural than the showing in Neon City.
CHOICE CUTS:
- This film is an updated version of the 1939 western movie Stagecoach, which should be obvious the moment you take note of the circumstances.
- The press of desperate, filthy humanity in Jericho is striking in comparison to the expansive, Zeerust utopian Neon City.
- Eye-drop drugs? Join the club with The Batman [2023], “Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda” [TV-syndicated], “Cowboy Bebop” [TV-Japanese anime], and Looper [2012]!
- This was Lyle Alzado’s final film role, before he lost his battle with steroid abuse and brain cancer.
- Dr. Xander built a laser from a flashlight and components from his suitcase. I am reminded of Jeff Bridges’ yelling fit in 2008’s Iron Man.
- Whenever Twink screams, it’s the most melodramatic overacting you’ll ever see. It’s also Juliet Landau’s second acting gig, so it kinda works to depict a sheltered debutante this way.
- Sandy is Stark’s ex-wife, Raymond and Jenkins got his son killed, he sent Bulk to prison: who doesn’t Stark have a problem with?
- The scene with the “bye-bye bag” was heartbreaking, and it means there’s a lot more at stake in the post-apocalyptic world.
- PRICELESS QUOTE: When Twink wants to know what is made at a factory spewing smoke, Stark replies “Nothing. And it’ll continue doing so for 1000 years.”
- If there’s one thing Hollywood is great at doing, it’s putting Black people in bad wigs and hairstyles. Vanity should have said something about it.
- Stark’s son isn’t a mutant; he is an unfortunate casualty of an environment so polluted, he was born blind with a cleft palate and other deformities because of what Sandy ate when she was pregnant. She didn’t have a lot of choices in a post-apocalyptic environment.
- I say the environmental veganism is useless because the idea was not to harm animals (let’s use pigs as a specific example) and consume their byproduct, justifying their concentration which causes ecological damage to groundwater and the ozone layer through their rot and fecal waste, respectively. Unfortunately people still hoard pigs and want to sell their meat. The animals still die, even if no one eats the meat. When no one eats the meat, the meat gets put in the food anyway — in things that shouldn’t have it like bacon shakes, bacon candy, bacon in salads, and even in medicine — and the farmers get paid for it by the government. Worst of all is when a beef steak cut is filled in with pieces of colored and beef-flavored pork bound to the actual beef with transglutaminase (AKA “meat glue”): you paid expensive money for cheap meat!
