Maybe YOU can take your eyes off of a post-apocalyptic action movie that features roller-skater girls in thong undies getting into knife fights, but I was helpless myself. When that’s not happening, you’ve got the villain who dresses like a masked Mexican wrestler and has a sidekick that’s a hand-puppet. What’s happening in this movie? I’m not sure. I lost track about ten minutes in. I don’t know why everyone’s after a mystical jewel. I don’t know what the deal is with the nuns in red and blue outfits and why they brandish a Nazi-esque Iron Cross insignia. The smiley-face symbols throughout lost me. And I couldn’t tell you why three punks are trying to kill some hippie who pushes a shopping cart in the streets.
Losing the story is sometimes a GOOD THING, though. Seriously. Too much plot is the same thing as no plot. That frees you to just watch THE MOVIE—and this is a movie that demands to be watched. Every time you decide you might walk away, another pretty girl takes off her clothes for no reason or there’s another roller-skate action scene that’s even more amazingly (incompetently) choreographed than the last one. You sigh and get sucked right back in.
No actual roller blades here, by the way. I don’t even know if those were around yet in 1986. The title refers, I believe, to how skates are the preferred transportation in this film’s car-less world and knives are the weapon of choice. Roller. Blade. Makes sense to me.