How well I remember The Ultimate Warrior when he was a big draw in Vince McMahon's WWF back in the day. With him in mind I thought I would get a titanically built warrior along the lines of Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Instead I got Yul Brynner looking very uncomfortable in a role for which a Schwarzeneggar was required to make it believable.

The Ultimate Warrior the movie is set in an apocalyptic New York in the year of 2012. A plague has descended on the land and the world's food supply has been pretty wiped out. Manhattan island has descended into gangs that have formed tribes. One of the more civilized tribes is headed by Max Von Sydow who is a scientist and whose son-in-law Richard Kelton has developed some vegetable seeds that are immune to the plague virus. But he and his pregnant wife, Joanna Miles have to escape to the country and give these seeds a chance to grow.

Which is where Yul Brynner comes in, The Ultimate Warrior, an ultimate fighting machine who makes hash out of an invading tribe headed by William Smith. Can Von Sydow and Brynner keep civilization alive.

Brynner was never a man exactly out of shape, but he was 55 and looking it when he did this film. Fifteen years earlier he might have been believable, but not now. Von Sydow was all right though as the voice of dying civilization.

One thing though in that last hand to hand fight with William Smith if Schwarzeneggar had been cast he would never have had to make the sacrifice he did. You'll have to see the movie to know what I'm talking about.

Only for Yul Brynner's fans and even they should approach this one with a caution.

The movie opens with a shot of downtown Manhattan with the original World Trade Centers standing in the background and Yul Brynnur standing still like a bald Stonewall Jackson. He only comes alive when Max Von Sydow promise him a room (with no rats, lucky him...),two meals a day (there's a food shortage you know, and Soylent Green is being rationed) but he has to find his own extra-curricular activities. (Von Sydow's that detailed). The population is down to almost nothing (the tourist season must be over) but gangs run rampant and Brynnur is the one to keep them in their place. There's lots of shots of the half-naked Brynnur fighting the gangs for Von Sydow and rescuing the poor and starving folk who live in his 8 floor walk up (presumably with rats as roommates).

This is a bleak look at society at the end of the Mayan calendar, taking you way inside the bowls of the City. Seeing the Trade Centers standing a decade after the historical catastrophe may be disconcerting for some viewers. The ending makes you wonder if Brynnur and his gal-pal Joanna Miles will run into Charleton Heston galloping up the East River with a mute young lady while being chased by talking apes. Oh, wait, no...the statue of Liberty was seen standing, so that's not possible.

Or is it?

2012 A.D.: Plague epidemics have wiped out a fair share of the populace and reduced society to a hellish, feral, survival of the fittest kill or be killed barbaric shambles with lethal hordes of Cro-Magnon thugs running amuck on the streets of every major city. In New York a peaceful, barricaded compound led by the wise, kindly Baron (a beautifully understated Max Von Sydow),assisted by the resourceful Cal the Gardener (a marvelously mellow Richard Kelton) and his feisty pregnant daughter Melinda (excellently played by Joanna Miles),try to rebuild civilization by creating seeds that are resistant to the various diseases that have ravaged the planet and turned it into a barren wasteland. However, the compound's fragile security is steadily eroding to the point were it can be overrun by the calculatingly malevolent Carrot (the always fantastic William Smith at his tremendously terrifying, hard-hearted best) and his gang of grimy, vicious brutes. Enlisting the aid of laconic, resilient, stoical, but essentially humane mercenary and street fighter supreme Carson (a terrific Yul Brynner in a very ideal piece of casting),the Baron has Carson with the seeds and Melinda in tow make a desperate effort to escape by traveling through the dusty, cobwebby, rat-infested subway tunnels to safety.

Unarguably the unjustly overlooked and undervalued prototype for the many 80's post-apocalyptic sci-fi/action features that followed in its influential wake ("Escape from New York" in particular immediately springs to mind; ditto the "Mad Max" films),"The Ultimate Warrior" ranks as a potently grungy, gut-kickingly savage and visceral dilly. Directed in blunt, unflashy, right-to-the-point fashion by Robert ("Enter the Dragon") Clouse (who also wrote the gritty, tough-minded script),expertly pushed along by Gerald Hirshfeld's active, agile, polished cinematography and Gil Melle's earthy, primal, slightly dissonant and highly percussive score, this strong poke-your-eyes-out-with-a-rusty-nail fierce flick really delivers the rousing back-against-the-wall hand-to-hand combat action: brawny, fast on his feet, fluidly whipping hither and tither supersharp knife wielder Brynner makes bloody hash out of the scumbags with his deadly blade in a series of first-rate ferocious confrontations, concluding with a tense, harrowing and extremely exciting subterranean face-off with Smith and his greasy flunkies which finally comes down to an incredible white knuckle anything-goes fight between Smith and Brynner.

Moreover, Brynner makes the most of his part, adding some surprising sensitivity to his rugged character while Smith hits an all-time nasty peak as the mean, but bright and charismatic villain. The sober, uncompromisingly harsh tone, done with no traces whatsoever of silly camp humor, but several welcome moments of genuine warmth and compassion and Clouse's stark, unflinchingly grim depiction of the ugly, upsetting savagery which permeates the post-holocaust milieu (for instance, Smith's gang captures a baby from Sydow's compound and use it as bait to lure Brynner outside),give the film an extra stinging edge. These two significant factors furthermore bring a certain bleak conviction to the frighteningly violent and totally amoral world shown herein, thereby elevating "The Ultimate Warrior" to the respectable status of a truly outstanding and unheralded winner.