Hardware / Movie It’s Christmas in the tech noir slum of the post-apocalyptic future, and scrap-metal sculptor Stacey Travis gets a present she’ll never forget. Scavenger boyfriend Dylan McDermott returns from the wastelands with the insectoid robot head of a killing machine. In no time it whirs to life and builds itself a gizmo-laden body out of handy appliances to continue its single-minded destruction of the human race, one warm body at a time. Director Richard Stanley, something of a scavenger himself, plunders everything from The Terminator, Blade Runner, and The Road Warriorto Short Circuit (the spidery construct resembles a demonic Number 5) for his violent flesh-vs.-metal survival thriller. Shot in sun-blasted orange and sweltering red, it’s a triumph of style, set design, and grunge aesthetics over story, driven by a pounding techno score by Simon Boswell and punctuated by splattering gore. –Sean Axmaker
Customer Review: Oh the humanity!
You know the previews for this movie looked really cool. Than again they are supposed to look cool so you will go and see the movie. I have to admit I was suckered in. Even the first 15 minutes of the movie suckered me into thinking this is going to be a really cool post apocalypse/cyberpunk style flick. But alas I was fooled.

The movie opens up with a scavenger looking guy wandering the wastelands where he picks up the head of the killer robot. Everything from the cinematography to just plain coolness factor was there. The movie goes way downhill from there. I think the biggest problem is the movie just didn?t know what it wanted to be. So much attention was diverted into what were ultimately details that had nothing to do with the plot. They are so blatant I have to point them out:

One instance is a huge scene was devoted to what sums up to being soft porn with voyeurism. You figure since they spend so much time on the guy watching the love fest that he would be a pivotal character. Right? WRONG! You could have cut that entire scene out and it wouldn?t have made a difference to the plot development at all.

Another example is you get to hear two security guards talk over a chess about how computers don?t understand certain tactical elements like strategic losses. Sounds like a nice little hint on what to do against the killer robot right? WRONG! That little tidbit of information never needed to ever used because it DIDN?T MATTER.

And lets not forget about the death scene of one of the prominent characters that took several minutes of dying even though we?re told the method of death is supposed to be very quick. I won?t even go into the lame way they actually take out the killer robot. All I can say is that it was a major disappointment and essentially came out of nowhere.

I will say that the production elements of the movie were great. Cinematography was excellent and the visual effects were really cool. The atmosphere of the movie stayed consistent also, plus the soundtrack is cool with songs from Simon Boswel, Ministry and Public Image Limited. Too bad the movie never went anywhere story wise.

I can only recommend about the first 10 minutes and the last five minutes of the movie as good. The rest of it stinks. If you want to go and watch the entire film for the sake of debating it?s blatant inconsistencies I can dig that too. (…). Let this movie be a lesson to all of you science fiction movie makers out there: Think about what you?re doing and make the stuff you put in makes sense in the end.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 3:06 pm and is filed under Affiliate Softare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.