Without taking too much away from this lunkheaded 80s vigilante movie's action, I must say the atrocities pale in comparison to the remarkable fluffy mullets and athletic shorts sported by the gang of twenty-something avengers,(led by a whiny James Van Patten, who looks here like a genetic cross between Jay Leno and David Patrick Kelly). Not even the wall-to-wall synth stingers and thumping drum machine can compete with wardrobe and hair. The gang even has a sports mascot, a poodle named Butch. Van Patten is so traumatized by the rape and murder of his sister, there's no safe retreat into his art (some form of lame graphic animation he screens to his friends; these "space-y" visuals looking like the rejected material of the video game companies who brought us Detroyer, Battle Zone, and Asteroids). He, instead, embraces spontaneous violence against street crime. Most of the atrocities avenged in the movie are so well-lit and conveniently found as to make the work of Dirty Harry, Charles Bronson and Robocop seem positively procedural. Yet the merciless violence can't sustain the awful characterizations and Van Patten's adolescent outbursts. Ernest Borgnine is in full Comm. Peterson mode here, playing Lt. Carrigan. Aside from sporting a snazzy red leather jacket that barely conceals his bulbosity, he's partnered up with Richard Roundtree, and both men's "hands are tied" by the system. Cannon Films produced this mess, but it's easier to measure the movie by its flaws than its assets. Not even Linnea Quigley can improve things any. Memorable scene highlights the disturbed Van Patten's degenerate art reaching a new low, as his professor shouts in front of the class, "This goes beyond the boundaries of art!" and "It's abnormal!". Who would have thought a vigilante's neon, flashing renderings of "Tron"-like haunted-house werewolves and toothy snakes and skulls could disguise the reason behind all this vengeance? Decent exploding miniature at the end.
Review of Young Warriors
