Once upon a time, comic book films were not always expected to be sophisticated works of classy entertainment.
Still, Barb Wire is totally inept and inert. Busting out with a tawdry introduction of soft-core striptease, the film takes a buxom bounty hunter from Dark Horse comics (home to Hellboy and Sin City) and lets pneumatic Pamela Anderson play her as a DOA mannequin.
In the early 21st century, the USA is in the wake of the Second American Civil War. The whole country is in a constant state of emergency and the fascistic Congressional Directorate rules the country.
There is only one free city left, Steel Harbor, a coastal California industrial town which is also headquarters for the resistance. This is the hometown of Barb Wire, owner of the Hammerhead nightclub (and part-time mercenary and bounty hunter).
One evening, her former lover Axel Hood (Temuera Morrison) appears at the club asking for a favour to help him and his lover Cora D (Victoria Rowell) – who just happens to be a former government scientist who has information about a bioweapon being developed by the Congressional Directorate – flee the country to Canada.
The plot is a shameless rip-off of Casablanca and makes no effort to hide it.
Barb Wire
Pamela Anderson
Axel Hood
Temuera Morrison
Cora D (Dr Corrina Devonshire)
Victoria Rowell
Alexander Willis
Xander Berkeley
Colonel Pryzer
Steve Railsback
Curly
Udo Kier
Schmitz
Clint Howard
Emily
Vanessa Lee Asher
Spike
Jennifer Banko
Foster
Tony Bill
Big Fatso
Andre Rosey Brown
Manny
Mark Collver
Sharif
Shelly Desai
Weasel
Neil Hunt
Moe
Henry Kingi
Sheik
Marshall Manesh
Charlie
Jack Noseworthy
Smooth
John Paxton
Frick
Peewee Piemonte
Krebs
Loren Rubin
Santo
Michael Russo
Jack
Nils Allen Stewart
Frack
Dominique Vandenberg
China
Ai Wan
Maria
Diane Warshay
Ruben
Nicholas Worth
Director
David Hogan