My goodness, you mean nobody's submitted a review for "Barb Wire" yet? Well, let's see if ol' Faux Pas can do it justice.

I saw this film back when it was on the theater circuit. Yep, that's right, I actually paid to see this masterpiece. I had no idea what the film was going to be about, only recognized the name as a Dark Horse Comics comic book that I never picked up, not once on my weekly pilgrimage to ye olde comic book shop. Here's the set-up:

My dad was in town, and we had run out of small talk for the weekend. Rather than discuss computers for the remainder of the Sunday until he headed out (a topic that I now find he didn't know as much about as he assumed), we decided to head to the local movieplex. Yep, out of sixteen screens, we settled on "Barb Wire." I'm not certain if you gentle readers recall that weekend "Barb Wire" was in the theaters, but our choices were limited. It was either "Barb Wire" or one of the dozen or so ninety-minute films about women sharing feelings and talking about relationships. I think this was in a February. [Actually it was May, just before the summer releases began. -- Sam.] As I've mentioned, I recognized the name of the film, so in we went.

The first things one notices in the movie are Pamela's, um, well, this is a family site, so let's just call them "Andersons." If you still don't know what I'm talking about, you probably aren't old enough to view R-rated movies anyway, so scoot along to Crazy Libs.

Anyway.

The plot of the "Barb Wire" is "Casablanca." No, not elements from "Casablanca." The actual movie "Casablanca": "Casablanca" plus Andersons, car chases, and explosions. Instead of transit papers, the Maguffin is a set of contacts with a fake retinal pattern. Pamela plays a much curvier Humphrey Bogart, Dooley Wilson (Sam) is split up between some bald guy and Pam's blind brother, a lecherous Claude Rains character wants Pamela, and both Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid's dopplegangers are trans-gender. Sydney Greenstreet (Senor Ferrari) is still fat, but now he's so fat he has to be moved around via bulldozer. Oh, and Pam gets to blow up Ferrari instead of selling Rick's Cafe to him.

About this time, you should be thinking: "What? What? Are they nuts? Didn't they think anyone would notice that the whole movie has been stolen from 'Casablanca'?" But that's exactly what the filmmakers were counting on. The target audience for this film most likely hasn't seen "Casablanca," so they were safe. The target audience for this movie came for one thing only -- well, two things -- and aren't they lucky! Pam's Andersons appear about ten times during the movie.

She's gets out of a shower, takes a bubble bath, changes clothes, dances, anything for a reason to have 'em out there.

Random scenes: There's a bunch of gang members that Sam/little brother has fallen in with. Major Strasser winds up wiping out the gang and little Sam. Pamela rides around on a rocket-firing motorcycle ("Megaforce," anyone?) and says her catch phrase "Don't call me babe!" about five times. During the opening credits, a patron calls her "Babe" and winds up with a stiletto heel in his forehead.

Good to make fun of if you're well-versed in "Casablanca."

Scene to watch for: The twist on the "Casablanca" ending.

Best line: I doubt there was one.

Things that make you say, "Huh?": What this boils down to is an R-rated version of "Casablanca."