n Year 23 – After the Cancellation – nomadic travelers arrive at the community of Heaven’s Gate, where various wares are traded and temporary shelters are available. But violent warmongers of Nork roam the countryside, attacking these sorts of settlements, making it precarious for all survivors frequenting these parts. Amusingly, this postapocalyptic environment features a wide array of piecemeal costuming, including characters dressed in sword-and-sandal chainmail, biker leather, Victorian-era dresses and powdered wigs, ballerina tutus, WWII helmets and uniforms, and other “Mad Max” or “Escape from New York” types of remnant attire. Some wield swords, while others use primitive guns with grappling-hook projectiles (the technologies on display never line up; essentially, everything about this production is flimsy or shoddy).

And the much-worshipped, widely-feared goddess She (Sandahl Bergman) is the leader of an Amazonian tribe, bedecked in elements of knight-like plating (and, alternately, thin robes) – though also skimpy enough to reveal plenty of sinewy arms and legs and midriff (joined by lead soldier Shanda [Quin Kessler]). When traders Tom (David Gross), Dick (Harrison Muller), and Hari (Elena Wiedermann) are attacked by the marauders, Hari is captured, while Tom and Dick are left for dead. One becomes the prisoner of She, while the other is shackled in a pig sty by a female purchaser. Both escape with minimal effort, intending to journey to the North Valley, where the ultimate horror awaits – and where they hope to rescue Hari (who is Tom’s sister). “Who’s the law around here?”

Though it takes its title from the H. Rider Haggard novel, it bears almost no other resemblance. In fact, it bears little resemblance to any unified vision in particular, save for borrowing continuously, scene after scene, from countless other fantasy pictures (including Roger Corman’s “Barbarian Queen” movies, “Zardoz,” “Barbarella,” “The Warriors,” “The Ultimate Warrior,” “1990: Bronx Warriors,” “Time Bandits,” “Death Race 2000,” and “The Sword and the Sorcerer”). It has almost no identity of its own, constructing itself from lifted components for every subsequent sequence. Like its premise, an odd, intermittently jazzy, rock ’n’ roll soundtrack crops up routinely, refusing to match any of the visuals, while the characters wander through an equally incongruent series of territories governed by ever stranger entities – including helmeted warriors stored in shipping crates, a Frankenstein’s monster robot with an exploding head, ritualistic monks with telekinetic abilities, mummy-like leprosy-ridden mutants who inhabit mechanical booby-trapped factories and wield chainsaws, and a singing/dancing pirate-cowboy hybrid who regenerates like a hydra – among other inexplicable denizens. “I bow to no one!”

It’s meant to be a treacherous odyssey of mythical trials, but the dangers that Tom and Dick face rarely feel harrowing – or even genuine. They even stumble upon a community existing within the confines of an ancient Greek hot springs, who relax and bathe during the day before orgiastically partying in the evening, adorned in tuxedos (all before they transform into flesh-feasting werewolves, that is). Just as insincere as these random episodes is the dialogue, which vacillates between poetically archaic and crudely modern, further generating a vibe of incompatibility (no one appears all that interested in participating or performing, either). “My friend’s an asshole.”

As if scriptless and made up on the spot, following along with nothing, the plot merely meanders, moving between locations and enemies, often breaking out into fights – and peppered with obvious but ineffective comic relief (the acting, in general, could be described as perpetual comic relief). It never seems as if it aims to do anything or go anywhere, setting up unrelated skits of mild adventure, fueled by armed combat with edged weaponry and superficial torture. It’s like several unconnected movies stitched together, entirely out of order. Despite a moment or two of decently choreographed duels, along with the utter curiousness of so many disparate, mismatched personas and styles and ideas, “She” is quite the mess, perhaps best summed up by a line uttered by the titular role: “This has nothing to do with sense!”

– Mike Massie