BATTLE QUEEN 2020 (2001)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Time sure flies after you've made bad movies. The makers of BATTLE QUEEN 2020 thought that a mere nineteen years would leave them enough room to have the Earth transformed by a marauding comet, so that their movie could show human society transformed into a world of the "haves" and the "have nots." Wait, don't we already have that? Oh, but the world of BATTLE QUEEN supplies all the "haves" with out-in-the-open prostitutes and no busybody law enforcement involved. 

The presence of institutionalized prostitution is the only sociological difference between BATTLE QUEEN and a million other futuristic tyrannies, and neither director Daniel D'or nor any of the three scriptwriters has the slightest idea as to how to deal with the oldest profession in sci-fi terms. It is, to no one's surprise, just a gimmick so that main character Gayle (Julie Strain) and a bunch of other hooker-characters can strut around nude or half-nude, while not performing unimaginative softcore sex scenes. 

The pace of BATTLE QUEEN is pretty much like your average softcore sex-film. Characters more or less drift from place to place, and every scene not involved with sex is desultory in terms of visuals and dialogue. Following a narration that lays out some basics of the new 2020, Gayle provides some narration as well, though nothing much about her personal history. Implicitly she's one of the underclass who were trained in prostitution to serve the corrupt "Elite," and she was so good that she can pretty much strut around anywhere she wants without much opposition. At some point she befriends revolutionary Spenser (martial arts-actor Jeff Wincott) and they try to figure out some way to overthrow the Elite, albeit with barely any sense of urgency. And as uninteresting as Gayle and Spenser are, the villainous dictators are even more pathetically colorless. 

An adventure-film need not have a stunningly original plot to grab an audience, but it does need to have action. By 2001 Wincott had ample experience serving up butt-kicking scenes, but BATTLE QUEEN is centered around Strain, who drifts around the majority of the scenes showing off her goods. She has one scene beating down two guardsmen that just barely qualifies this film as a combative adventure-- though it's not clear where a future-hooker got martial fighting-skills-- but a later scene almost cancels out what heroic presence she earns. When Gayle spars with Spenser, the intent is to portray her as a badass, when in fact it's obvious to any viewer that she's just fending off pre-choreographed blows and kicks. There's one other kung-fu hooker, whose non-speaking role is played by one Eva Dawn Nemeth, and she looks far better in her stunts than Strain does-- though of course Strain had by 2001 somehow become known as a major "B-movie queen." Personally I get little out of the Strain films, though at least, unlike some softcore sex symbols, she has no compunction against at least partial nudity, and so is giving at least some audiences what they want.