Review of 2019: After the Fall of New York

Most people seem to go on and on complaining about how shamelessly this film imitates John Carpenter's "Escape from N.Y.". Well, duh…! Wasn't that the movie's sole mission? That's what clever Italian filmmakers did during the 1970's and 1980's! Whenever there was something new in Hollywood that hit big at the box-office, a bunch of Italian writers immediately began to work on scripts to cash in on these particular trends, only their movies were usually even more violent, sleazier and gorier than the milestones they were inspired by. Some of the best Italian (horror) movies are obvious rip-offs, like Fulci's "Zombi 2" and Deodato's "House on the Edge of the Park". Sergio Martino's "2019 - After the Fall of New York" also definitely ranks amongst the coolest, most unscrupulous movie-clones ever made! Carpenter's original is a terrific movie, but who's more eligible to come up with a dark, grim and graphically sadistic post-apocalyptic story then the Italian exploitation guys? "2019 – etc…" is a tremendously COOL movie and that pretty much summarizes it all. Once again, futuristic New York has turned into a dangerous wasteland where the few survivors of nuclear warfare feed on rats and get randomly executed for not volunteering as medical guinea pigs. Even worse here is that no children have been born in over 15 years and the entire human race is threatened with extinction. The outer New York federation sends the courageous race-car driver Parsifal to NY in order to bring back the last fertile woman on earth. Naturally, this won't be a pick nick trip, as he has to battle the evil "Euraks" and a troop of hairy circus freaks, led by "Big Ape" (a nice guest appearance by George Eastman). This movie certainly delivers loads of exhilarating action scenes, fabulous kitschy set pieces and a wide range of fascinating characters. The hero Parsifal is a likable Snake Plissken clone, with the exact same haircut and costume, only without the eye-patch (his sidekick wears one, though) and dry sense of humor. The supportive characters include Cyborgs, wild dwarfs and one gorgeous (albeit infertile) girl. The "human extinction" plot is reasonable ingenious and if you don't have problems with all the story lines that are "borrowed" from other cinema classics ("Mad Max", "Planet of the Apes", "The Omega Man",...), you're guaranteed to have great fun with this little-seen Italian cult gem.