City Limits (1986)

A Brilliant Conflict

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

It's really hard to know how to rate this film because there's two ways to watch it. One ways is horribly wrong, and the other way is wonderful. If I'm rating the movie on its own merits, it's a horrible piece of garbage which should never have been made (what was James Earl Jones thinking accepting this part...). If, however, I'm rating this as an MST3K fan, it is comedy gold. So, to recap, DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE JUST FOR THE MOVIE ITSELF! You will regret that decision forever. Do, however, pull up the MST3K version of this on Netflix and enjoy it.

"City Limits" is not nearly as badly made as some of the "Bottom 100" movies described here on IMDb. It's got better sets than something like "Robot Monster", better production values than anything Coleman Francis or Bill Rebane ever did, and somehow it attracted some actual acting talent (both known and unknown). But the movie commits two unpardonable sins: it's boring and it has a plot that is barely comprehensible and makes no sense (if Robby Benson wants to crush the juvenile motorcycle gangs in the city, who is he going to sell things to afterward? All the adults are dead, remember and nobody else seems to be left in the city?)I feel especially bad for Robby Benson in this film - his scenes are airless and disconnected from anything else in the film and he sucks in them. (Not his fault - given his lines, blocking, and the cinematography, he could hardly do anything else.)On top of that, the costumes are lame wannabe affairs, the dialog is under-baked and under-rehearsed - whole scenes go by where not a single actor gives a believable read - and the whole comes off like a dystopian ABC after-school special. I saw the MST version of this (yes, I can make a fair judgment of a movie by the MST cover, because I enjoy their japes but know they often are unfair in their coverage of a movie so they can be "funnier"), and even with their added entertainment, it was slow going. You can skip this one...or if it happens to come on cable or something while you're watching, you can fall asleep in front of the set to it.

In the future, two rival gangs are vying for turf: the Clippers and the DA's. Lee (Stockwell) leaves his rural life behind and heads to the big city to be part of the action, and gets embroiled in the gang warfare. Mainly this includes riding around on modified motorbikes and wearing silly outfits. But their masks are pretty cool. Even more trouble forms in the guise of Carver (Benson) who wants to control the city, or possibly the world, and is willing to use the gangs towards his evil ends, even pitting them against each other. Will Lee and his buddies prevail? At the outset of this movie, we're informed that what we're seeing is "fifteen years from now", but the Vestron VHS box tells us the movie takes place in the distant future of 2003. But one character's Masters of the Universe (1987) coat really tells us what decade we're in. But apparently Steven Seagal's personal style had an impact, as a lot of people in the future wear fringed jackets. While City Limits isn't quite in Shredder Orpheus (1990) territory, it is a bit reminiscent of Wired To Kill (1986). These are not favorable comparisons, as this movie seems like it could have been directed by Albert Pyun. When are filmmakers going to learn that annoying characters doing annoying things does not a movie make, and you cannot skip character development. Isn't that movie-making 101? This movie makes no sense, and it's hard to imagine anyone, whilst making it, thinking it was a good idea, much less NOT a total waste of everyone's time, but here you go. It's total shelf-filler tailor made for the expanding video store market in the 80's. It seems only the Italians can make entertaining post-apocalyptic movies. Basketball fans may get a kick out of the fact that one of the roving street gangs in this movie are called the Clippers, but it falls on deaf ears for mostly everyone else, including us. Also Robby Benson does what we call a "sit-down" role, where a character never moves from his seat.Why did James Earl Jones agree to be in this? Sure, this movie may be boring, pointless and adds nothing new whatsoever to the post-apocalyptic genre, but the filmmakers were shrewd enough to realize Jones has a commanding voice, so they had him narrate this slog. Seeing as how it was the 80's, and JEJ wears this brown fur coat in the movie, and how he's the narrator of course, only one thing comes to mind: Teddy Ruxpin. But this movie is an insult to Mr. Ruxpin as whoever wrote the cassette that was placed in James Earl Jones did a horrible job. Only Jones' professionalism prevails.It's easy to see why MST3K chose to do this movie. It's just weak on pretty much every level.For more action insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

John Stockwell appeared to have a promising career ahead of him. He co-starred with Tom Cruise in the horrible "Losin' It," with a car in Stephen King's "Christine," and with a dinosaur in the quite forgetable "My Science Project." For whatever reason, he, James Earl Jones, Rae Dawn Chong, Kim Cattrall, and Robby Benson signed on to make this post-apocalyptic story. But he wears a (very fake) animal skull as a motorcycle helmet, and for that reason alone the first few minutes of the film are worth watching.