Wastelander Panda: Exile was definitely one of those films I was looking forward to at Fantastic Fest, based solely on an image I saw online of three humanoid pandas walking in a Mad Max-esque post apocalyptic wasteland. All while looking extremely badass.
The film itself is the story of a Panda named Isaac, who suffers from some serious anger management issues. After accidentally killing a young human girl Isaac is tried and banished by his tribe’s elders with his brother and mother. His family can only return under the condition they can replace the young girl Isaac killed, since women are a valued resource within the tribe. So the three pandas set off into the wasteland to find another young girl in this strange little Aussie film.
Isaac eventually teams up with a group of human raiders, which allows him to capture another girl and in the process kills her father and turns her brother over to be sold into slavery. The panda then is then double-crossed by the raiders and must escape with the young girl hostage in tow to gain his family’s re-entry into their tribe.
Wastelander Panda: Exile is a fun concept that probably would have fared much better as a 15 minute short. The main issue here is the longer the film runs the more the ambiguity and absence of story and character development tend to wear thin on the viewer. That coupled with the lack of humanity in the protagonist, after murdering a young girl at the beginning of the film there is no real reason to empathize with a character that lacks any real redeeming qualities. Especially after we are later supposed to believe that after killing the young girl’s family she would choose to stay with the panda and help him.
It’s those leaps coupled with the fact the film takes itself way too seriously. Unlike something like Danger 5, Wastelander Panda: Exile fails to embrace the complete and total absurdity of its concept. All that kept going through my mind while watching this film is how do you possibly screw up a film about giant humanoid pandas roaming the desert and kicking ass?
Needless to say I was more than a little disappointed in Wastelander Panda: Exile. I really felt the film squandered its potential and really wasn’t quite sure what direction it wanted to go in. The thing about films like these with an anti-hero at the helm is deep down inside there needs to be something about the character worth redeeming. Isaac really lacks that something and because of that the film definitely suffers.
