Not Old Yeller, thank God, but post-apocalyptic vaudeville assembled, with a happy sledgehammer, from the Harlan Ellison sci-fi novella. The main joke is in the literalization of the Mutt and Jeff squabbling couple, as testy lunkhead Don Johnson using telepathy to bitch with his snooty canine companion, Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire as if channeling Monty Woolley). The year is 2024, and in the fallout the atomic armageddon of World War IV there's not much for the two to do but dodge green mutants, scavenge up canned peaches, watch pornos and, when they're lucky, sniff out some poontag. Their biggest catch is vivacious Susanne Benton, who turns out to be tawny bait to bring Johnson out of the arid wasteland and down to the underground, where reactionary rural utopia has coagulated into garish Thornton Wilder lampoon, overalls, straw hats and mime pancake akimbo. Since all the fellas have turned barren, Johnson's man-juice is to be drawn out via a milking gadget, until perpetually duplicitous Benton sets him loose -- she needs him for her own machinations, only to end up in the barbecue pit when she dares to come between a boy and his dog. The movie's outrageous gonzo-misogynistic bent may have been picked up by director L.Q. Jones from his acting jobs for Peckinpah, though Sam would have at least made this rowdy pre-Mad Max jaunt more confrontational. Still, Jones executes the chintzy promises with dubious vigor, never more gleeful than in his Middle-America demolition job, where rouged-up Jason Robards presides, as ridiculously embalmed as the values -- basically the same concept as the previous year's The Cars That Ate Paris, only pushed further, free of Weir's gentility.
--- Fernando F. Croce
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