Barb Wire
(out NOW on Video)

By all accounts, the TV series Baywatch is now broadcast to 1.3 billion people around the world in 113 different countries; and let's face it, we all know why we are watching, and to pick up life-saving techniques it ain't.

Given that this is the case, it's a little surprising that Barb Wire - a shameless vehicle for Pamela Anderson -has, by all accounts, not done so well in the USA. Or is it? If you live in California, all the girls look like Pamela Anderson and 20-year old versions of Paul Newman are scattered liberally across the sand flexing their perfectly tanned physiques. Add liberal doses of sun and what the f%&@ are you doing inside watching some sugar-sweet TV series? Still ...

Pam fans in the cold wasteland of Northern Europe won't be disappointed by this SF adaption of the Dark Horse comic - it's certainly pushing the envelope for a 15 certificate. It opens with a nearly naked Pammy lap-dancing it up under a hose of water in a strip joint, presumably to establish exactly why all the men in the cinema are there (and also presumably giving the ladies who thought this was a film about putting up wire fences in 19th century Arizona a chance to pull the ejector seat).

Set during the second American civil war, our Pammy is a bar-owner cum mercernary, and in between mixing martinis for kids back home from the front, she picks up bail jumpers and rescues school girls from white slavers in an urban Mad-Maxed future. Fairly soon though, the nazi-like bad guys in the civil war are screwing around with her life, forcing Barb to choose between a life of ease in Paris, or a firefight on behalf of the democratic rebels. Some choice, right?

This is a comic-strip actioner painted in comic-strip colours - plenty of cartridge popping action, bladerunner streets and a hard kicking Pam wandering about in tight shimmy leathers (or even less). But if you want a real plot, you'd be better served by checking out the alternative reality 1930s fascist version of Richard III currently showing.

I only have one question. Just how the hell do they stay up like that? (and don't call her babe)

The latest Barb Wire Books


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