Exploitation legend Cirio H. Santiago strikes again with yet another Filipino-made post-apocalypse actioner after the previous year's STRYKER. This is a straightforward action packed B-movie, nothing more nothing less, that is happy to rip-off MAD MAX 2 and about half a dozen other such movies. And you know what? This is really fun stuff! The reason being that there's no plot as such, just one action scene after another. We've got shoot-outs, burning stuntmen, car chases, lots of crashes, explosions, and to top it all off a large scale battle between two armies which employs a surprising amount of extras and proves to be a worthwhile finale. The action is straight-forward stuff, mildly convincing but lacking in any impressive stunts or camera-work. Don't expect any style; Santiago is no George Miller or Enzo G. Castellari, he shoots his film workmanlike and just gets on with it, making up in quantity if not in quality for the action bits.
Other elements of interest include the opening stick-fight with metal bars (coming from the man who made THE PACIFIC CONNECTION, this is not a surprise); a few slow-motion car stunts as they roll over the edges of cliffs; hero Trace burning lots of bad guys with his flame-thrower, which is pretty cool in itself; a topless woman tied to the bonnet of a car (!); a tribe of troglodyte albino cannibals known only as the "Sandmen", whose inspiration stems from the Morlocks in THE TIME MACHINE, it seems; and the aforementioned large scale destruction/battle of the climax, fittingly topped by a mildly entertaining death for the chief villain. The arid locations in the Philippines make for an authentic backdrop for the production and the costumes, weaponry, and armoured vehicles fit the bill, even if they're not particularly outstanding or memorable.
Hero Gary Watkins is definitely a Mel Gibson-wannabe and actually looks a lot like Gibson, so much that you'd think the two were brothers. Thankfully in his imitative performance some of Gibson's world-weary character comes through making Watkins an adequate lead. The three female supporting characters - one a female warrioress in the Sandahl Bergman mould, the other a psychic like Laura Gemser in ENDGAME, the other the sister of the lead character - are rather indistinguishable from each other and their characters don't hold the interest (good thing that there's lots of action to take your mind off the people involved then). Lynda Wiesmeier turns out to be a Playboy Playmate and unsurprisingly spends about 90% of her screen time topless. The only other characters that stand out are an annoying comic relief dwarf and the sneering villain, as played by the Filipino-born Joseph Anderson with some relish. The rest of the cast are mostly just undistinguished Filipino actors and don't make much of an impact. In the end, WHEELS OF FIRE is pretty much a forgettable flick that entertains you throughout with the wealth of action that it offers, rather like a Dolph Lundgren movie or a Stallone/Norris Vietnam movie. Enjoyable once but not one you'll go back to, this is B-movie making at its most solid.
Other elements of interest include the opening stick-fight with metal bars (coming from the man who made THE PACIFIC CONNECTION, this is not a surprise); a few slow-motion car stunts as they roll over the edges of cliffs; hero Trace burning lots of bad guys with his flame-thrower, which is pretty cool in itself; a topless woman tied to the bonnet of a car (!); a tribe of troglodyte albino cannibals known only as the "Sandmen", whose inspiration stems from the Morlocks in THE TIME MACHINE, it seems; and the aforementioned large scale destruction/battle of the climax, fittingly topped by a mildly entertaining death for the chief villain. The arid locations in the Philippines make for an authentic backdrop for the production and the costumes, weaponry, and armoured vehicles fit the bill, even if they're not particularly outstanding or memorable.
Hero Gary Watkins is definitely a Mel Gibson-wannabe and actually looks a lot like Gibson, so much that you'd think the two were brothers. Thankfully in his imitative performance some of Gibson's world-weary character comes through making Watkins an adequate lead. The three female supporting characters - one a female warrioress in the Sandahl Bergman mould, the other a psychic like Laura Gemser in ENDGAME, the other the sister of the lead character - are rather indistinguishable from each other and their characters don't hold the interest (good thing that there's lots of action to take your mind off the people involved then). Lynda Wiesmeier turns out to be a Playboy Playmate and unsurprisingly spends about 90% of her screen time topless. The only other characters that stand out are an annoying comic relief dwarf and the sneering villain, as played by the Filipino-born Joseph Anderson with some relish. The rest of the cast are mostly just undistinguished Filipino actors and don't make much of an impact. In the end, WHEELS OF FIRE is pretty much a forgettable flick that entertains you throughout with the wealth of action that it offers, rather like a Dolph Lundgren movie or a Stallone/Norris Vietnam movie. Enjoyable once but not one you'll go back to, this is B-movie making at its most solid.