AFTERBURN is one of the two post-apocalyptic Dave Bautista vehicles that played theaters in 2025, but it’s the one I missed. I saw IN THE LOST LANDS, which is more of a stylized fantasy movie, while this is more like a straight ahead lower budget action movie done, apparently, on a mid-budget. Huge compared to the DTV stuff I watch (including FINAL SCORE starring Bautista), of course, but in a similar spirit. It’s out on physical media today and I was happy to catch up with it.

It’s set six years after solar flares devastated much of the earth and destroyed the infrastructure so that electricity doesn’t entirely work (but some of it does? I’m unclear). Bautista’s character Jake was a deep sea treasure hunter who now takes jobs going into dangerous territory to find rare objects for warlords like August (Samuel L. Jackson, THE RETURN OF SUPERFLY). He’s good with bombs and puzzles, and in the opening he’s on a mission that involves pretty cool video game style problem solving to get a Stradivarius out of a secret vault. He doesn’t personally care about that type of rich people shit – the rare item he brings home for himself is a Public Enemy record. It’s late Public Enemy (“How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People?,” 2007) and it sounds very tinny on his phonograph, but it speaks well of his tastes. As with IN THE LOST LANDS, I also appreciate knowing a guy has BLADE RUNNER and Basquiat neck tattoos in the future.

August has a well dressed assistant named Fuentes (Eden Epstein) who acts as a go-between and it seems like she might be Jake’s ex or maybe it’s just a flirtation but I like that there seems to be something between them that’s never stated. She calls her boss King August, which is new, he’s recently decided he’s the King of England. I wonder if they discussed that Jackson’s character in Ronny Yu’s FORMULA 51 claimed Scottish royalty and inherited a castle.

Jake gets pushed into another job he really thinks is too dangerous. Supposedly the King knows where the Mona Lisa is hidden, and Jake can trade it for the sail boat he’s long been promised. His dream is to pull an Orinoco flow and sail away. So he gets on a bullet-ridden plane, parachutes into Sad Europeans In Hoodies Village (where you gotta disguise yourself by draping yourself in a really long coat), and goes to find his local contact, a resistance fighter named Drea (Olga Kurylenko, BOUDICA: QUEEN OF WAR). She wears a headband for most of the movie, a look that reminds me of Warrior Woman from THE ROAD WARRIOR and Sarah Connor when she drives off at the end of THE TERMINATOR. I really appreciate this because I’ve always felt people should dress how they want in a post-apocalypse situation and I pretty much started wearing a headband at all times during COVID lockdown.

Though both are doing this job for King August, Drea’s not a mercenary, she’s a true believer, choosing to side with what she sees as a not-as-bad warlord so she can fight the sadistic tyrant who rules the area, General Volkov (Kristofer Hivju, IN ORDER OF DISAPPEARANCE). Volkov has a long viking beard and a gestapo-uniformed henchman named Gorynych. The actor playing the henchman is 1) the exact actor you or I would name if asked who would most likely play the main henchman in this movie and yet 2) one of the people we would be most happy to hear plays the main henchman in this movie. Yes, it’s Daniel Bernhardt (DEATHSTALKER) delivering that Daniel Bernhardt magic, building up how scary he is for several scenes, showing up to casually fire a bazooka at one point, finally fighting Jake and getting his gun blocked so many times he has to start kicking (as we’d prefer), and getting a comeuppance that first made me laugh then made me think about how much they must’ve laughed when planning it. (SPOILER: he starts an evil speech but Jake punches him hard in the dick and he says “owwww.”)

The screenplay is credited to Nimród Antal (director of PREDATORS) and Matt Johnson (TORQUE), based on a graphic novel by Scott Chitwood and Paul Ens. An adaptation has been in the works since the aughts when Toby Maguire was gonna produce it? Not sure if he would’ve starred. It was gonna be a Fuqua/Gerard Butler joint for a while, then Tommy Wirkola (HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, VIOLENT NIGHT), then Jung Byung-gil (THE VILLAINESS, CARTER), but it ended up being the third movie directed by UNDISPUTED II choreographer J.J. Perry after DAY SHIFT and THE KILLER’S GAME.

Perry and d.p. José David Montero (HELL FEST, BACKDRAFT 2) aren’t quite as playful as Perry was with those drone shots and stuff in his directorial debut, but there are some pretty nimble moves following motorcycles and things. Stunt coordinator/second unit directors are Daniel Hernandez (THE WOMAN KING) and Troy Robinson (THE KILLER’S GAME), fight coordinators are Felix Betancourt (THE GRAY MAN) and Balazs Lengyel (FIGHT OR FLIGHT).

I have enjoyed the 87Eleven era and how many stunt legends have moved into directing. I wish all of them made movies as exhilarating as the JOHN WICKs, but it’s not fair to compare others to Perry and Bernhardt’s BLOODSPORT III co-star Chad Stahelski, a unique visionary and visual stylist. Perry seems a little more like David Leitch, working on lower budgets, resulting in less polish but maybe a little more leeway to goof around. I don’t consider any of his movies great so far but they are all fun movies with some laughs and a good variety of strong action featuring some of our favorites from the action world, always giving it the energy of “J.J. called me in for this, I gotta deliver.”

Somebody might justifiably prefer THE KILLER’S GAME for having more fights against colorful bad guys, but I think this one comes together much better – more consistent tone, more consistent character for Bautista to play (though a less challenging one). It’s not a unique story but it’s a perfectly serviceable premise to send Bautista into a bunch of situations including but not limited to driving a cool truck off a jump (he likes the truck so much he’s worried about getting a boner), being briefly chased by parkour cannibals (it’s post-apocalyptic France after all), blowing up a bridge, and of course fighting Daniel Bernhardt. There’s plenty of non-gun action but I would like to acknowledge the impressively meaty and explosive bullet hits. They make a strong argument that safety doesn’t have to be the only advantage to using digital instead of squibs. And I forget what it was but there was some part that made me say out loud “That’s something Blade would do,” which in my opinion is a bigger honor than being knighted or even sainted.

It maybe suffers slightly from having a climax similar to but not as exciting as SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE (both have the hero fighting Russian dudes on a train with a big missile on board), but what can you do? They didn’t know.

Jackson sounds a little hoarse in the movie, which concerned me because it’s the first time I ever thought about oh shit he’s gonna be 80 in a couple years. But he may have had a cold or decided the character has a different voice than him. He’s obviously the right guy to cast as a crazy asshole boss who’s kinda fun even though he sucks. Kurylenko has to do a mix of the cool action lady thing she’s always good at and the drama she can also pull off, but she doesn’t really get much time to build to the latter so it’s a little choppy at times. Not her fault.

Bautista, though, really gets to shine and demonstrate his value to lower brow movies. Everybody’s seen him in BLADE RUNNER 2049 and what not but it’s maybe even better that he can be great in regular movies. I realized early on that all his little acting choices were making it different and better than it would be with anyone else in the role, and that’s what I want to see in an action star vehicle. He looks good slimmed down a little (but still huge compared to humans), does a great job with the quips (asking droogs in half-assed police uniforms “Wait a minute, you guys aren’t real cops are you?” is my favorite) and there’s a great scene of him lifting dudes and throwing them hard (the wrestler-turned-action-star special), but it’s the character stuff that makes him Dave Bautista. He seems very sincerely tuned into every scene, reacting honestly and naturally no matter what crazy b-movie shit is going on, maybe a little bewildered but not overselling. Trying to roll with it. I love the little moments like when the plane starts shaking and the crazy pilot (George Somner, CRAWL) tells him to put his parachute on. He just says “Okay” very reasonably and politely asks about how to use it (since he never has). Doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Just does what he needs to do.

We know he’s a sweetheart because the one arrangement he makes in case of dying on the mission is asking Fuentes if she’d come feed his dog for him. A little emotion leaks into his voice when he says he doesn’t have anyone else to ask. He’s not sad that he doesn’t have friends, just that he’s failed to provide options for the dog. That’s all that matters.

Don’t worry, the dog doesn’t die. We don’t see him again though, which is an oversight. Otherwise this one knows how to please a crowd, so it’s a pretty good time at the videos. Keep ‘em coming, Dave and JJ.