47 Years Ago Today, This Incredible Cult Action Movie Released – and Its Video Game Might Be Even Better

Even if you don’t know the name Walter Hill, you’ve almost certainly seen some of his work. He was one of the executive producers of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt alongside Robert Zemeckis, Richard Donner, and Joel Silver. He’s been a producer on every Alien movie from the original to Alien: Romulus and even contributed to the scripts of the first three (going uncredited for the first and helping to come up with the story for the second). But what he’s known as first and foremost is as a director, specializing in unique action films with at least one foot planted in reality and with a ton of style to boot.

We’re talking films like the underrated Extreme Prejudice, with Nick Nolte, Red Heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the ambitious neo-noir Streets of Fire, the single locale crime thriller Trespass, and his most well-known film, 48 Hrs. But that Nolte-Eddie Murphy team-up isn’t his best. That would be The Warriors, and as amazing as it is there’s an argument to be made that Rockstar Games’ 2005 video game adaptation is even more purely enjoyable.

What Makes Both Versions of The Warriors So Special?

There have been many movies that showed off visions of the future. Blade Runner with its flying cars, The Terminator and its man vs. machine war, Demolition Man with its tickets for cursing, the list goes on. But it’s hard to imagine a more relatable future world than the one seen in Hill’s movie, which is essentially just New York City if it were the home of 100 plus gangs all dressed up in distinctly different styles. One has its members dressed up in baseball uniforms with face paint, one wears black and white striped tees and fedoras, another is a bunch of mimes with top hats, and so on.

The narrative is rather simply, and charmingly so. Cyrus, the head of the top gang in NYC calls a meeting with most of the city’s other gangs. He proposes they align and control the city together. But Luther (Commando and John Wick‘s David Patrick Kelly), guns Cyrus down and screams out that the Warriors are responsible. Now, the Warriors need to fight their wang through a legion of cops and rival gangs who hold them responsible for Cyrus’ death if they’re ever going to make it back to Coney.

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It’s a narrative that doesn’t at all feel far removed from our world. There aren’t that many gangs with individualistic and sometimes silly designs, but Coney Island is a very real place. Furthermore, Barry De Vorzon’s pulsing synthesizer score creates the illusion that we’re in a different time, one that’s both retro and futuristic. And, when we’re not hearing that amazing score, we’re hearing a voice of God DJ pick amazing songs that correspond to where the Warriors are in their journey home. She’s like if Wolfman Jack in American Graffiti if Wolfman Jack somehow had an eye on what the protagonists were doing.

It’s a great movie, breezy and filled with a few top-notch performances e.g. Michael Beck as Swan (one year before Xanadu threw a blanket over his rising star), James Remar as Ajax, and Deborah Van Valkenburgh as Mercy. But the game deserves even more respect.

Video games based on movies are notoriously almost always of poor quality. But when Rockstar was announced as the developer handling this one, it showed that it was going to be something else. It helped that it wasn’t a cash grab video game like when one would be made for every new superhero movie released throughout the aughts. This was a passion project, and it shows.

The game functions as a love letter to the world Hill and crew built, both in terms of capturing its style and expanding upon the story. It’s like an extended cut of the film, and none of the scenes added back in feel superfluous. It even expands the character of Cleon, the Warriors’ leader who disappears (almost certainly dies off-screen) at the very beginning of the movie.

Rockstar was so dead set on getting the game as close to the movie as possible that they actively sought on getting everybody from the original back for the game. And they succeeded, with the aforementioned Swan, Remar, and Valkenburgh returning as well as Dorsey Wright as Cleon, David Harris as Cochise, and Thomas G. Rembrandt (The Thing) as the ill-fated Fox, the Warriors’ scout. All of them jump right back into character, and that’s not as easy as it sounds.

Of course, it’s not just the game’s ability to replicate the movie’s charm that makes it such a winner. As far as beat ’em up games go, this one has some of the most fluid controls and tight camera work on the market, making it compulsively playable and re-playable. For the sake of clarity, fighting games are more one-on-one, like Mortal Kombat, while beat ’em up games are one-on-several.

Like Bully, The Warriors showed that Rockstar beats everyone else even when the title doesn’t include the words grand, theft, and auto. If any game should be remastered, it’s this one.

Which version of The Warriors do you like better? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!