NEON CITY (1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

When looking for stills with which to illustrate this review, I noticed a fair number like the one above, in which the actors are mostly just standing around. This makes a fair amount of sense when you know that the director/co-writer of NEON CITY was actor Monte Markham, who, one would expect, would be intimately concerned with what his fellow actors in the project would need.

As many online reviewers have observed NEON CITY is basically a reworking of 1939's STAGECOACH for a post-apoc film. It's 2050, and human abuse of the environment has led to many barren areas of the U.S., over which authorities in the large cities wield only provisional power. Motorcycle-riding mutant raiders range the barren lands like wild Indians, and some travelers are afflicted by bizarre weather conditions like poisonous sand storms and solar phenomena called "brights." 

The law in the cities is far from even-handed. Ex-cop Harry Stark (Michael Ironside in a rare lead role) quit the force long ago due to personal grievances, but now he can only use his skills as a bounty hunter. He captures an accused murderess, Reno (Vanity), but when he takes her in to get his bounty, an old enemy, Raymond (Markham) rigs the situation so that Stark can only get his bounty if he takes Reno to Neon City. And the only way to get there is by "riding shotgun" on a stage-- I mean, a special armed transport. Various other passengers are also traveling to Neon City, and one of the travelers is the daughter of a rich man. Her welfare is the reason Raymond is so determined that Stark go along as added security, even though the transport's driver is Stark's old enemy Bulk (Lyle Alzado). 

I won't spend very much time on the various passengers, who are all simple stereotypes, though I may as well note that one traveler is Stark's ex-wife, now a prostitute (and thus a loose parallel to the female lead of STAGECOACH). However, the destined romantic arc for Stark is one with Reno, which one should anticipate just because they argue all the time. In addition, one mysterious older fellow will eventually prove to be Doctor Xander, infamous for having run experiments that made the pollution problems worse. 

The bulk of the film is episodic, as the transport either seeks to fend off the attacks of the cycle-riding mutants or tries to find shelter for repairs and/or provisions. There's no surprise when the warriors of the group-- Stark, Reno, and Bulk-- largely work together to preserve their lives and those of the passengers. Oddly, while Bulk never attacks Stark, he tries to get busy with Reno, who manages to escape him. But there's no dramatic result of this incident, except that Reno, who refrains from accusing Bulk, suddenly breaks her tough-girl pose and explains to Stark just why she's innocent of the murder-charges.

Eventually a fair number of the characters make it to Neon City, little of which is seen beyond a receiving area. Yet for all the nastiness of the journey, some characters have some personal growth, and there's some hope that Xander may be able to reverse the climactic problems. Most post-apoc stories are downbeat in the extreme, but since I get a mild sense that Markham was trying to draw parallels between the redemption of the travelers and that of the world, I rate NEON CITY as "fair" in mythicity.