Nomads

John McTiernan's directing career must be the most unpredictable ever. He alternates pure crap with mediocrity with genuinely entertaining films.

Check out the scores at IMDb:

(7.90) - Die Hard (1988)
(7.50) - Hunt for Red October, The (1990)
(7.10) - Predator (1987)
(6.90) - Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995)
(6.80) - Thomas Crown Affair, The (1999)
(6.10) - 13th Warrior, The (1999)
(5.71) - Medicine Man (1992)
(5.37) - Nomads (1986)
(5.31) - Last Action Hero (1993)
(2.90) - Rollerball (2002)

I'd say that The Last Action Hero is underrated, while Nomads and The Thirteenth Warrior are overrated, but that chart gives you the general idea. Die Hard, Thomas Crown, and Predator are pretty cool films, while Rollerball and Nomads couldn't be much worse.

Look at the dates. Predator, one of his cool films, came only a year after this one.

The basic storyline in Nomads is this:

Pierce Brosnan is a French anthropologist with an outrageous accent, and he is running away from the extras in Road Warrior. It turns out that those people are not normal humans, or even actors in a lousy road show musical version of Mad Max, but are actually evil spirits who roam the earth in bad costumes. Apparently, the Eskimos are the only people who know of their existence, and Brosnan found out because he's an anthropologist who studied Eskimos. Or maybe he ate a spoiled Eskimo Pie and hallucinated the whole thing from food poisoning. One or the other.

NUDITY REPORT

Pierce Brosnan shows all the goodies in a very dark scene, as he undresses for bed.

Anan-Maria Monticelli shows one breast in a lovemaking scene.

The movie begins with Brosnan tied to a hospital bed. As he rants and raves, he bites his doctor and transfers all his knowledge and memories to her. She then sees life through his eyes, eventually living his past and her present simultaneously. Sometimes, when we see Brosnan, it is Brosnan. Sometimes it is the doctor in her own present, in which she somehow shares Brosnan's soul. Sometime it is the doctor in Brosnan's past. We don't know, and we can't see very well anyway, because the producer apparently didn't pay the electricity bill on the sets, and we basically see a form which looks something like Pierce Brosnan.

DVD info from Amazon

As if that weren't confusing enough, it appears that these evil Eskimo Road Warriors cannot leave California. I guess it's some kind of evil karmic house arrest, and therefore you can become free from them simply by going to Vegas.

But don't come back from Vegas. Not even if you win.

The Critics Vote

Ebert 1.5/4

Rotten Tomatoes summary. Only three articles on file

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 5.3/10

with their dollars: a BOMB - $2 million.

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C-. I gave it a C- only because some people think this is an interesting supernatural story, so if the genre is "weird tales", I guess it is not totally awful to fans of that genre. Personally, I hated it.