Highlander 2 (1991)

Thanks to Karl for suffering through Highlander 2 for us. It really was only a matter of time before this movie would be posted on the Shack, but I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to have to watch it!

Directed by Russell Mulcahy

Written by Gregory Widen

Run Time: 109 minutes

A guest review by Karl Hoegle

	Connor Macleod (Christopher Lambert) He must have really needed the money, or failed to read the script before agreeing to this turkey. Hmmm… Was there a script?
	Juan Sánchez Ramírez (Sean Connery) 3.5 million for 9 days work! I guess that even a screen legend can’t pick all winners. His bio-rhythm must have been low that day.
	Louise Marcus (Virginia Madsen) I hope she fired her agent after this debacle. I sure would have.
	General Katana (Michael Ironside) I hope he looks upon this movie and says “I was soooo drunk when I agreed to do that”

He must have seen the budget for this turkey!

Please allow me the indulgence to start this review off with a disclaimer; I loved the original “Highlander” movie, along with the entire concept of one man from each country fighting each other until the end for the amusement of the Gods, etc. This piece of tripe not only soured my fond memory of the first movie, but has stolen some of my ability to give any sequel an unbiased view. This movie is the only one so bad that I went to the theater manager and demanded a refund. Not asked for, but demanded. (I was able to score free tickets to a different movie, so I was only partially successful, I guess.) Be warned, this one is pretty awful.

The first “Highlander” movie started much like this one; we see a crowd of people watching some form of entertainment and we zoom in to see the Highlander in all his brooding glory. No one broods like Christopher Lambert, nobody. We meet Connor as an 80 year old duffer, barely able to stay awake long enough to hear the not-so-fat lady singing opera in a venue clearly marked “Opera”.

It ain’t the body, it’s the mileage

On the same block you might be able to go to “Bar” and get “Drink”. Connor sees the Wagnerian opera and it reminds him that he was not born of this Earth (Clearly an error, as he had relatives in the first movie that remember him as a child) and that he, Ramirez, and a host of nobodies were rebels on the planet Zeist in the distant past. They were exiled to Earth from this dying, desert like planet because they were fomenting sedition. General Katana (Michael Ironside) chews so much scenery with his “I am not a bad guy, I am THE bad guy” hammy-ness that you just feel sorry for the guy. He has his soldiers who are clearly armed with projectile firearms, lasers, and artillery eschew said weaponry for swords, just so there would be more screen time eaten up with actors jumping about and getting stabbed, chopped, and blown up. Katana, upon capturing Ramirez and Macleod, takes them to his masters instead of killing them there in the desert. His masters ban the two of them to future Earth, where they will be immortal and can fight for the prize; a return ticket home.

Planet Zeist sucks!

Let me get this straight; I try to overthrow the government of my home desert planet, I screw up and they catch me red handed. But instead of making an example of me by putting me in a huge blender, they send me away to a distant planet in my future that is green, rich and verdant. There, I can fight the other immortals for the prize of returning to Zeist in the past and becoming mortal again, hopefully magically cured of my need to overthrow the current regime. Or, I can choose not to fight and live on lush green Earth forever. Who thought this crap up? Did Brian Clemens even watch the first (and in my opinion, the ONLY) “Highlander” film?

This review can’t even begin to touch on the thousands of errors, lousy special effects, goofiness, or general disdain for the intelligence of the viewer, so I will condense into small chunks for brevity’s sake.

The Earth’s Ozone layer is almost gone; Connor and Alan Neyman build a shield above the ozone layer to protect the fragile eco-system below. Yay. No one questions the scientific prowess of an ex-antiques dealer from Hudson Street. The Shield Corporation that they formed makes a fortune by charging everyone for protection. If you miss a payment, what can they do? Make tiny holes in the shield to fry you and only you? Stupid…

This shield makes it always rain, always hot and humid, and all sunlight is gone. Plants somehow adapt. Somehow. Question: Without sunlight, wouldn’t it get cold pretty quickly?

Rebels led by Louise Marcus break into the local shield generator station, run a test, and see the results plainly state that the radiation above the shield is normal. Why this is news to them baffles me, as it is the ozone layer that is gone, and it protects us from normal radiation levels. So the test proves nothing.

Katana has his handy Earth-O-Vision TV set glued to Connor Macleod, and since he has nothing better to do, he calls his two stupidest soldiers in to travel to Earth and kill Connor. The brighter of the two (and that is saying something, his I.Q. must be in the low 40’s) asks why not just let Connor die naturally, he is barely walking by himself now, and having trouble finding nurses willing to change his Depends® undergarments. Katana slaps the impudent fool and tells him to get on with it and just kill him.

Louise Marcus easily finds Macleod and asks him why he built the shield. He looks at her with the patience of someone talking to an addled insanity victim and gently tells her it was “to save everyone”. She avers that the “Ozone layer has healed itself, and the radiation levels from the Sun are normal”. How could she know this? The test she ran showed that the solar radiation levels above the shield are normal, which has no bearing on whether or not the ozone has replenished itself. Connor points out that it would take more energy than the entire Earth has to shut down the shield. (!) This new science continues to puzzle me here, as it takes energy to keep something powered on, and loss of power tends to shut said unit down. Oh, well. Louise still wants to take her chances. If she is wrong, she is murdering every living being on the planet. Talk about guilt!

The Shield generator!

While Connor chews this over, the two goons attack, one on a hover board and one with small wings, and the flying is about as believable as a politicians’ promise. Wires shine briefly, speed and conservation of momentum are ignored, etc. Sigh. Connor eventually kills these two clowns and becomes immortal again, after feasting on their life energy. The only good scene in the entire movie is where a suddenly young Connor walks out of some flames and broods. No one broods like Christopher Lambe… Oh, wait, I already said that. Sorry. At this point, I said loudly and clearly in the theater “This movie had better get real good, real quick”. Sadly, it never did.

The finest assassins Zeist has to offer!

Katana gets the belated news from his Earth-O-Vision that his goons hath snuffed it, and decides to do it himself. He materializes on Earth in a subway train and kills a few innocent people, asks a young boy if he ever wanted to “drive” one of these. I guess they have trains on his desert home planet of Zeist and even evil Generals aren’t allowed to drive the trains no way, no how. He eventually gets it up to 670 KPH which equates to 416 miles per hour. Riiight. Faster than a speeding bullet!

Meanwhile, Louise finally convinces Connor that she is right; they decide that they need help. Connor screams “Ramirez!” for no reason and unbeknownst to the two of them a lightning bolt reconstitutes Ramirez in modern day Scotland, where he appears in the middle of a Shakespeare play of “Macbeth”. He innately knows where Connor is, (Remember he died long before America was discovered in the first movie) and scurries off to meet his second destiny. I know if I was resurrected I would be more than a little amazed at that. The last thing I’d want to do is anything even remotely dangerous!

They meet up, and after some half-hearted swordplay to pad the run time they decide to blow up the shield, but only after Connor and Louise check out the ozone level by climbing up a 12 to 19 miles long ladder inside a mountain and seeing for themselves. They have no trouble breathing in the stratosphere, the near absolute zero cold and scant oxygen doesn’t bother either of them in the slightest, and they view actual sunlight in all its glory, Louise for the first time. Riiight! If I climbed a 12 to 19 mile long ladder, my forearms would make Popeye’s look small in comparison. That Louise is one tough broad!

Above the ozone layer. Seriously.

They climb down the 12 to 19 mile long tube and meet up with Ramirez. They easily break into the compound by driving in and allowing themselves to be shot with over 100 bullets each. The car’s trunk, which holds Louise in it, must be armored as she suffers not a scratch. Connor and Ramirez wake up in the infirmary where the doc is putting the moves on Louise, and they overpower him and head to the final scene. They get caught in a trap, a huge spinning fan blade in a tube relentlessly advances, and Ramirez pulls a magic hand gesture, slowing the fan blade. He states that “We each have a full measure of life. If we summon it all up in one try, we can do something magic” and somehow opens the locked door, allowing Connor and Louise to escape. He then ran off the set and cashed his paycheck which was over 10% of the total film budget and got the hell out of there. I can’t blame him.

This movie has dozens of fans! [Dennis: ha ha]

Katana catches up to the duo in the generator room, Connor fights him, and ends up killing him. The power of the Quickening enables Connor to safely step into the power beam that dissolves most matter on contact and disrupt it, destroying the shield and returning Earth to its former sun drenched glory. I’ll bet sunglass vendors made a pretty penny that day. The plants were pleasantly surprised as well.

The movie ends, Connor and Louise walk into an improbably starry night with Ramirez babbling in the distance, probably laughing on his way to the bank. We are left with a nagging thought that we could have watched paint dry and been much, much more entertained.

Planet Zeist Bro-mance! Get a room, you two!

Karl Hoegle (Feb 2012)

Read more about Highlander 2 at

Escape From Galaxy 3 (1981)

Yes, it’s the follow up to “Star Crash”…only without the sophisticated plot and great special effects. Yeah, it’s that bad!

Still not convinced? Check out this sample:

Directed by Bitto Albertini (as Ben Norman)

Written by John Thomas (who?!)

Run Time: 87 minutes

	Belle Star (Sherry Buchanan) Ahhh…Belle Star. My cosmic princess. Before appearing in this epic movie, Ms. Buchanan had parts in Tentacles (1977) and, one of my personal favorites, Zombie Holocaust (1980). Unfortunately for us cheesy-movie lovers, she fell off the radar and hasn’t been seen on the silver screen since 1987.
	Lithan (Fausto Di Bella) The effervescent Lithan never gives up, no matter how horrible the special effects become. Throughout his 16-year film career, Mr. Di Bella appeared in various movies and Italian TV shows but has been inactive since last appearing in Computron 22 back in 1988. God speed, Lithan, wherever you may be.
	Oraclon (Don Powell) The best dressed evil overlord in the galaxy. Don Powell has appeared in a smattering of flicks throughout the decades, including several ‘Emanuelle’ films. (Kids, go ask your parents.)

Other Titles: Star Crash 2

"Prepare the uranium vapor rockets!"

- Oraclon

After receiving the acclaimed "Sci-Fi Invasion" box set from our highly esteemed Monster Shack regular Guts3d (thanks again!), I quickly browsed through the movie descriptions to begin my quest for a new review. With a title of "Escape From Galaxy 3", well, I had to look no further. And then, lo! it was the sequel to Star Crash…Huzzah! How could I resist! [NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Boy, I wish I would have called it quits after Star Crash...]

Open with standard titles over a multi-colored starry background. Hey, those stars look familiar…Actually, after a few minutes, I quickly realized that the makers of "Escape From Galaxy 3" not only reused special effects from Star Crash, they also unabashedly inserted entire scenes from the previous movie. Ahhh…the joys of an extremely low-budget film. Where would the Monster Shack be without them?

Sure enough, after the credits are over we cut to a fly-by scene across the huge "hand ship" lifted from the first movie. On the other hand, an advantage to cheap movies like this is that they don’t waste any time on useless things, like a plot. Cutting right to the chase, we jump cut to the bridge of a spaceship and see princess Belle Star reporting to her father, King Zenor, that the "cosmic radar" has picked up an unidentified ship that "doesn’t belong in this galaxy." (How did she know that? And what does that even mean?) King Zenor quickly realizes that Oraclon, "The King of the Night", is behind the latest attacks. (How is there "night" in space? Oh, never mind.)

The resident hot-shot pilot, Lithan, informs Zenor that they can hold off Oraclon if they use, wait for it…Plan Epsilon!

Cut to Oraclon’s ship: the big "hand ship" from the first movie. I guess there’s more than one "hand ship" out there since the first one blew up in the previous film. It must be like in Star Wars when the Empire built a new Death Star. Yeah, right.

Anyway, we catch our first glimpse of the mighty Oraclon, shockingly sporting a salmon and teal colored frock, azure hoodie, and an immense winged collar with silver sparkles in his beard for good measure.

When Oraclon learns that King Zenor’s ship is disabled, he calls up King Zenor and demands his surrender.

Naturally, King Zenor refuses (otherwise the film would be over), so Oraclon retaliates by launching an awesome attack comprising of 5, count ‘em, 5 space fighters.

"Turn on the laser barrier…course four-zero-thirteen, fifteenth dimension!" Lithan shouts from his battle station. (Fifteenth dimension?)

"Prepare the uranium vapor rockets!" Oraclon yells to some poor guy standing immediately beside him (who must be deaf in his left ear by now from all the shouting).

"Right on target," Oraclon laughs, even though the footage we see shows every single laser shot missing completely and shooting off into the void, so I don’t know what movie he’s watching.

"The central computer received a direct hit," Lithan informs the King. With this unfortunate turn of events, the King has "no other option" than to send Lithan and Belle Star on a diplomatic mission to the planet Anteres to plead for help. (I thought that Repairing the Computer might qualify as an option, but oh well.)

Ok, let’s see now. After flying through a laser storm of cheesy effects, Lithan and Belle Star approach…something. It’s a big red dot, so I think it’s supposed to be a planet. Damned cheap effects. Regardless, it’s a big red dot on the screen so let’s just say it’s Anteres and get on with it.

"Use the hyper-solo missile systems!" bellows Oraclon. Wow. Not just ‘solo’, but hyper solo! (Just how this scene is tied into the previous shot is unclear. In a movie like "Escape From Galaxy 3" things just sort of…happen, if you know what I mean.)

"The hydrogen booster units are already at six thousand mega-degrees!" Lithan reports as they take off from the ship. (I’m guessing that’s a bad thing?) And now I’m really confused because I thought they had already left the space station. Boy, is this a great movie.

In a fit of pique, Oraclon blows up Anteres. I think. It’s a big red dot, so yeah, I’m pretty sure that was Anteres.

Sooooo….after vaporizing Anteres, Oraclon shoots laser beams from his ship and hits King Zenor standing on the ship’s bridge (!). Man, he is good!

"You galactic idiots!" he shouts to nobody in particular when he realizes that Belle Star and Lithan have escaped. Another space battle commences with the same damned footage from before. Man, I’m really getting tired of this. "Mega-metric-teleprobe and scan the whole galaxy!..including the equi-distant cosmic tangents!" Oraclon roars after losing his prey in the chaos of battle.

By the way, Oraclon likes to shout…a lot.

With his ship disabled in the battle, Lithan is forced to make a landing on a nearby "asteroid", which is the same red-planet special effect that was just blown up. A FX penny saved is a FX penny earned, I suppose. And you’d think that Lithan, a inter-galactic star pilot would know the difference between a planet and an asteroid, but there you have it.

Upon landing on the planet’s surface, Lithan and Belle Star (still wearing her crown!) kill some run time by traipsing through a forest, over a field, through some more forest, ad nauseam, all the while amazed at such unusual things as "trees", "grass", and the sun! Some local natives, which look suspiciously like Italian movie extras, jump out from nowhere and start throwing rocks at them. Lithan takes aim with his magic finger laser ring and scares them away by firing cartoon warning shot at feet. Never having seen a curly-haired skinny dude in a blue rubber suit before, the natives flee back into the wilderness as Lithan and Belle discover a nearby village.

Meanwhile, the locals have gathered at Ye Olde Meeting Place, and are telling their leader about the "flying monster" that recently landed. I’m actually surprised the writers had the self-control to not call it a "big fire bird from the sky".

As the villager warriors sneak into position to capture them, Belle Star stands by a stream and exclaims, "It’s water! I once saw it in my father’s collection of intergalactic minerals."

"What do you use it for?" Lithan asks.

Yes, advanced alien beings that don’t know what water is. I’m also wondering about this guy’s hygiene a bit: Lithan travels through intergalactic space wearing a blue rubber suit for who-only-knows how many "cosmic years" and he doesn’t even know what water is? Poor Belle Star! Hope they had decent ventilation on the ship.

Our heroes stroll around some more learning about the planet, i.e., booooooring!, when suddenly they are captured by leather-clad, spear wielding natives. Instead of wasting money filming a trial, the movie makers simply cut to the chase and have the village elders sentence them to death, i.e., "Consumed by the flames!" After Belle Star and Lithan are led to a quarry for execution (What’s with cheap Italian flicks and quarries?) the crowd jostles for position at the top of a steep cliff. During all the shoving back and forth, a small child slips from the edge and "dangles" for dear life while his mother screams for help.

Lithan, being from another galaxy and all, somehow possesses a super-jumping ability which he employs to hop up and save the kid. After jumping back down to the ground (via the magic of playing the exact same scene in reverse) Lithan shoots a smug smile to Belle Star and murmurs, "Apparently they don’t know about psycho-kinectic energy." Realizing that Lithan is actually a pretty cool dude, what with jumping 500 feet into the air to save the kid, the village elders pardon them both and welcome them into the fold by providing them with leather clothes.

After some extremely blatant padding showing Belle Star and Lithan learning the ways of the tribe (including having sex with a few of them along the way), Oraclon enters Earth orbit. Sensing that maaaaaybe they should get the hell out of there, Lithan and Belle Star run back to their ship but can’t start it because the navigation system isn’t repaired yet. (Maybe he should have been fixing it instead of sleeping with the local folk? Just a thought.) Oh, it turns out things aren’t so bad after all:"There! That should do it,"says Lithan with a smile after repairing the ship by, literally, flipping 2 switches on the console.

"It’s the planet Earth" Oraclon says upon detecting high-levels of radiation in the atmosphere. "They destroyed themselves in an atomic war." (Actually, things look pretty nice on the planet, but whatever.)

After a brief discussion Lithan realizes that Oraclon will detect the radioactive exhaust if they start the ship’s motors so…they head back to the village! And now there’s a freakin’ communal dance! Wow, this is some serious padding here, I tell ya.

Ahhh, but we get to see some ladies teach Lithan how to eat a chicken wing. Boy, is this a compelling scene.

Now begins a few boring minutes of lifeless dancing. Joy. After the spectacle a men-only contest commences and whoever wins gets to sleep with the woman of his choice. You know, that reminds me of something I saw on the Discovery channel last week, but I can’t put my finger on it. Anyway, the village women don’t have much say as to their role in the contest, but they do keep busy by running wildly, er, I mean ‘dancing’, with torches as the men engage in this bizarre ritual. You’d think that winning your choice of sex partner would involve a pretty difficult challenge, but the test here consists merely of climbing a ladder, walking out onto a log, and jumping into the middle of a ring of fire, which puts it on par with pretty much anything you’d see on American Gladiators. Wow…Earth girls are easy.

Of course, in a bid to generate some suspense, a few guys fail miserably at this relatively simple "challenge", until finally some local yokel wins by being the first guy to jump into the flames without setting his butt on fire. I’m not kidding. It’s that stupid. Obviously, the lucky winner chooses Belle Star as his prize while Lithan watches helplessly from the sidelines burning with jealousy. In a truly corny bit, we see Belle Star and Lithan thinking of each other while they try make love to their respective local sex partner. All together now: Awwwwwwww….isn’t that sweet? In fact, their mutual attraction is so great that they break off their amorous activities and return to each other in common area for a quick round of smooching.

The tepid kissing scene is rudely interrupted when Oraclon flies overhead out of nowhere and starts zapping people from his space ship. "Enough playing around, blow up the entire planet!" he orders after vaporizing a few unfortunate villagers. Boy, jumping from killing single villagers to destroying the entire planet; this guy runs pretty hot.

"We had only one Force-Ten mega ray, and we used it," Oraclon’s assistant meekly informs him. Furious at himself for not buying more Force-10 Mega Rays at the store while he had the chance (I assume), Oraclon decides to pad the movie some more and returns to space to wait for Belle Star and Lithan to leave the planet’s surface…because he can track their exhaust or something. Whatever.

After Oraclon returns to space, the villagers turn hostile and (rightfully) blame Belle Star and Lithan for the recent deaths. The village elders order Lithan to leave the planet but he tries to explain that they must remain because of the whole exhaust-tracking-thingee. At this point I was hoping that the locals would kill Lithan and Belle Star and thus put this movie out of its misery. Unfortunately for the viewer, Lithan shoots a few cartoon laser beams into the ground to scare everybody thereby giving them a chance to skedaddle back to their ship. Once safely inside, they engage the ship’s engines and return to their own galaxy. Call me crazy, but didn’t Lithan say something about Oraclon being able to track them? Wow, this is a really tight plot.

To pass the time (and kill run time), Lithan and Belle Star engage in some kissing and light petting to test out the new sexual awareness they picked up after their lengthy stay of 1 night on Earth.

"After thousands of years our sexual powers have come back to life," says Belle Star, "we’ve acquired a powerful new dimension!"

Does that mean the only way Belle Star and Lithan can defeat Oraclon is by banging each other? Damn, Lithan, why didn’t you think of that? Hell, why didn’t I think of something like that back in high school?

Anyway, Belle Star realizes that she needs to be in the throne room itself so she can get close enough to Oraclon to kill him. Or something. Remembering that Oraclon is an idiot, Belle Star feigns surrender and asks him to teleport herself and Lithan directly into his ship in order to formalize their surrender; Oraclon the Cosmic Moron eagerly complies while never suspecting a trap in the least.

"You will live as my slave," Oraclon chortles after escorting Belle Star to the aforementioned throne room. Lithan, meanwhile, is condemned to forced labor for the rest of his "cosmic life." (I just love how they try to make things sound "spacey" by adding "cosmic" in front of random nouns.)

Naturally, Oraclon can’t resist performing the Evil Overlord’s Self-Defeating Gloat and brings in a forlorn group of "Kings and Emperors of the Galaxy" so he can crow over his latest victory. Sensing that the time is ripe for ending this silly movie, Belle Star kisses Lithan "goodbye" and then in a totally weird moment even for this movie, Belle Star kisses Oraclon while Lithan shoots lasers from his eyes that strike Oraclon and blow him up. (Reread that last sentence again and try to picture how bizarre that all was.)

With Oraclon turned into cosmic space dust, Lithan and Belle Star decide to return to Earth since "We have nowhere to go in this galaxy." Well, that’s as good enough reason as any I suppose. Oh, but they’ll lose their immortality if they go back to Earth. Oh? They were immortal? Gee, thanks for letting me know. Furthermore, if they were immortal then why were they afraid of Oraclon killing them?

As Belle Star and Lithan return to Earth, they set Oraclon’s ship to self-destruct which it promptly does via even more recycled "Star Crash" footage. (By the way, maybe the Cosmic Police will arrest Lithan for manslaughter since he abandoned all of the "Kings and Emperors of the Galaxy" on the doomed ship when he left. What a nice guy.)

Soooooo, after passing through "three galaxies and endless solar systems," Lithan finally spots Earth floating in the void. What are the odds, eh? Actually, the odds are freaking infinitesimal but don’t tell Lithan that. After landing, the villagers greet them with great fanfare. I guess the writers forgot that the villagers wanted to kill them when they left Earth the last time. Strange. Then again, I doubt even the writers cared at this point.

With cheering natives applauding their return, Lithan and Belle Star stroll off to a beach and start making out and…cue closing credits. Really, that’s it.

Ack, enough already. I gotta go work on my uranium vapor rockets.

fini

Dennis Grisbeck (January 2012)

So, you still want to watch the whole movie? Here you go!

Read more about Escape from Galaxy 3 at

From the Better Late Than Never Department:

The Monster Shack takes great pride in trashing the (gag) “Syfy” channel, but I was recently shocked, yes shocked!, to find it presenting something genuinely good. Thrilling even! And that thing is…..drum-roll….. The Mercury Men. It is, to quote it’s very cool retro poster, “The return of the classic cliffhanger serial!”

Cut to the City Building, Pittsburgh, 1975. In black and white. Where bored, peevish office drone Edward Borman sits watching the clock. Bang on 7:00 PM he is ready to go, ignoring the pleas of a young woman who simply has to have her documents stamped. But his passive-aggressive satisfaction is arrested when he hears a scream just before entering the elevator. Where did that young woman go? Returning, almost against his will, to investigate he sees an eerie light moving through the empty offices, and is soon running for his life from strange glowing figures who can kill with lightning. Fortunately for Edward these intruders are not the only visitors that night, and his life is saved by Jack Yaeger, a “daring aerospace engineer” and member of something called “The League.” For now all I can tell you is that it is led by one “Captain Tomorrow.” And that devise the glowing beings are assembling in the parking garage? It’s a “gravity engine!” Can Jack and Edward destroy it before the minions of the Chief Designer use it to accomplish his fiendish plan? Tune in tomorrow!

Sean Ledden (December 2011)

Read more about Mercury Men at

R.O.T.O.R. (1988)

Sorry for the long wait since the last review. If anybody is still out there…I humbly present R.O.T.O.R. as a peace offering.

Still not sure you want to go on? Let the trailer whet your appetite

Written and Directed by Cullen Blaine

Run Time: 90 minutes

Tagline: Judge, Jury, and Executioner.

Few movies cry out to be reviewed as much as R.O.T.O.R. This 80′s sci-fi cheap-o movie has absolutely everything that makes a bad movie good:

• Goofy character names
• Embarrassing racial stereotypes
• Odious comic relief
• Continuity errors galore
• Plot holes a’plenty
• Horrible synthesizer music
• Confused time lines

and the list goes on and on. How could I resist taking a closer look at this one? Obviously I couldn’t.

I would like to note that throughout this review I refer to the ROTOR robot as a "he" and not an "it" because it feels more natural since it’s formed as a male police officer.

Oh, here’s the trailer to get you started…you decide whether or not you want to continue after this:

Still want to continue? Ok…

Open with crawling text which hasn’t been a good sign since, oh, "Star Wars". The fun part is that the scrawl rolls up the screen over what is supposed to be a super-high tech metal chassis of a robot; much like the burned-up metal skeleton from the end of "Terminator". Unlike in "Terminator" where millions were used on special effects, this robot seems to have been made out of scraps of Plexiglas topped by a plastic halloween skull wearing red sunglasses.

Today’s Headlines

Murder, Rape, Robber, and Arson.

Tomorrow’s Solution…

R.O.T.O.R.

Robotic

Officer

Tactical

Operational

Research

Our objective was to build the perfect cop of the future…a machine programmed to overcome any obstacle, to combat the crimes and corruption which threaten the very existence of our society…but, something went terribly wrong.

It always does, brother, it always does…

Friday 4:55 P.M.

Cut to stock footage of normal downtown traffic while an "Eye in the Sky" helicopter traffic-jockey explains how incredibly busy the traffic is. Note that this traffic report in no way resembles the scene shown in the movie. In fact, the 12 lane highway seems to be at around 20% capacity while the reporter goes on and on about how everything is "jammed up".

Wow, now that’s some killer traffic!

Meanwhile, a couple is out driving around in the dark. "I’m leaving all my troubles at the office; no phone, no work, just a quiet peaceful weekend at the lake," says the guy. Yeah, we all know what happens when people explain how much they’re looking forward to a quiet weekend…mwu-ha-ha!

Suddenly an explosion occurs! Well, the sound of an explosion is foleyed onto the sound track; we don’t actually see anything blow up. The car pulls up into a cloud of smoke which is most likely from an off screen bonfire fanned by stage hands meant to represent the aftermath of the gigantic explosion. "What the hell?" exclaims the driver upon seeing a battered, bloody man leaning over an unconscious woman. For some reason it’s completely dark out but when they parked the car it was still dusk…maybe it took the driver a few hours to get his door open.

"Call the police!" gasps the bloody man kneeling in the road. The driver rushes back to the car to call 911, but I thought he just said he left his phone at work, so I’m already confused.

Friday 7:30 P.M.

A helpful time stamp informs us that it’s 7:30 P.M. But, is it really pitch dark in Texas at 7:30 in the summer? I guess it as. A policeman cuffs the still-unnamed, bloodied man for his transport to Division. "Buckle up for safety, sir" says one of the detectives. I’m not sure how he’s going to do that since they’ve hand-cuffed him, but it’s the thought that counts.

Another voiceover introduces us to the man in the back seat, our hero, Captain Coldyron (pronounced "cold iron")…"Two days ago I was considered a leader in the field of police robotics; today I’m thought of as a modern day Frankenstein." Yes, we all remember back in the 80′s when police robotics was in its heyday…ahhh, good times. Well, maybe he meant police robot movies since Robocop was released a year before this one and Terminator just a few years before that. Now, I’m not implying that those other movies "inspired" this one in anyway…but hey, you do the math.

Anyway, Coldyron continues his voiceover as we continue our Dallas stock-footage flyover. You see, Coldyron was working on an army of police robots to fight crime and take humans out of danger…"But how do you stop a machine that’s gone berserk with only a ‘Go’ button and no compassion?" Good question. Thankfully my DVD player has a "STOP" button when I need to take a break from this movie.

Division Headquarters 10:00 P.M.

We finally arrive at HQ where a pair of underpaid film extras, sorry, I mean Detectives, question Coldyron about his involvement with the dead motorcycle officer. Not wanting to incriminate himself, Coldyron refuses to discuss his robotics research which presumably led to the incident.

Female Detective tries to play it nice, but I think she sort of screws up her lines here,"You know that this is an official debriefing…officially not an arrest questioning…then please state so on the record, doctor,…unofficially."

"Officially!" the other Detective shouts.

Female Detective agrees, "Officially."

I hope all that made sense to you.

Anyway, throughout the questioning Coldyron keeps fiddling with a golden key-shaped object (Plot Point!) as we begin our Official Film Flashback:

"Last Thursday my life was a lot easier…," Coldyron begins.

Thursday 5:00 A.M.

Cut to Coldyron’s ranch which provides us with gratuitous padding lasting nearly 3 minutes. You’d think I’d be used to this kind of run-time filler after all the crappy movies I’ve seen but it’s just as boring as the first time. We get to see pretty much every tiny, dull detail of Coldyron’s morning routine: waking up, eating breakfast (coffee for the horse, the carrot for him…Humor!), etc. etc. After a while we see Coldyron riding around on his horse testing a new type of explosive detonation cord. Well, it’s not super exciting, but at least something is happening. Oh, and remember this cord, it’s going to show up later.

Tactical Operations Lab 9:00 A.M.

Now driving to work…wait…Coldyron did all that stuff in the previous scene before even leaving for work!? Good grief, I guess you can safely say he’s a morning person. Inside the research lab we catch a glimpse of odious 80′s hip-hop dude named Shoe Boogie (!) who starts hip-hop dancing with Willie the Obnoxious Comedy Robot. If I remember correctly, there was a mandate back in the 80′s that required all films to have at least 1 moon-walking scene. Yeah, that has to be it.

Meet Shoe Boogie and Willard. No. That’s not a typo.

Coldyron heads upstairs where he’s to present the latest developments of the "IA1138 chassis" to a team of developers from Dallas’s sister research unit. "We scientists are like the science fiction writers…prognosticators of the future." Isn’t that sort of redundant? Anyway, Coldyron fires up a handy film projector which treats us to a lovely view of R.O.T.O.R…the prize result of nearly 4 years of research.

"Is this what your research has lead up to?" asks a nearby Wisenheimer, "a tin marionette?"

"Not exactly," says Coldyron. (I’m surprised he didn’t punch him in the face.) You see, a certain Dr. Steele has developed the chassis from "an unknown alloy…simply given an obscure number." (What exactly is an obscure number?) As Coldyron continues his explanations, the crowd watches the movie screen in rapt attention as the camera pans up and down this awesome technological marvel known as R.O.T.O.R. (Thanks to my modern day technological marvel known as a "Pause Button", this shot also reveals the screws holding the tiny robot model together.)

Now that’s convincing.

A Dr. Carl speaks up next, "What’s your [take] on this unknown alloy? Is there some sort of good vibration to its molecular tonality?"

"Exactly! Watch," says Coldyron as they watch ROTOR begin a sequence of goofy movements that looks like a really bad dancer performing, well, a really bad dance.

"The chassis: how can it animate without gears or motors?" asks another who apparently didn’t see all the, er, gears and motors in the chassis close ups.

"Are you saying this thing can do anything from aerobics to Tai Chi?"

"Right! It can do karate to full-field combat," Coldyron says as we see ROTOR performing some enthusiastic karate chops. This is actually pretty funny; not only because of the rudimentary animation meant to represent state of the art robotics, but because Coldyron’s presentation is a reel-to-reel film which perfectly coincides with whatever the visiting scientists happen to ask about.

Hiiiii-keeba!!!

"God only knows this is spectacular," remarks another scientist, and I was sure he was going to start laughing, "but what exactly are we dealing with here?"

"Molecular memory and learning. All it needs is a spark: a current of electricity as a catalyst."

(So, you mean just plug it in?)

"The meta itself can learn, and teach itself." Oh, yeah. Sure.

Anyway, Coldyron goofily answers more goofy questions and his presentation finally comes to an end. After the briefing, Division Commander Buglar calls Coldyron up to his office to give him some bad news. "Let’s dispense with the social amenities and just say we did," Buglar grumbles. Uh oh. This can’t be good. Not with dialog like that. Apparently the local cash cow Senator wants a progress report and wants a progress report…pronto! Feeling the heat from, Buglar, without consulting Coldyron first!, promises the Senator that ROTOR will be ready for production in 60 days.

Coldyron insists that this schedule is utterly impossible, and refuses to be bullied despite Buglar threatening to pull him off the project:"You fire me and I’ll make more noise than two skeletons making love in a tin coffin!" After some more back-and-forth with Buglar, Coldyron resigns from the ROTOR project and hands over the reins to his assistant, Dr. Houghtaling. After stomping out of HQ, Coldyron calls his girlfriend, Penny, for lunch to discuss this recent downturn in his fortunes. The lunch scene, purely designed to eat up run time, naturally includes a horrible song called "Hideaway", which is an odd choice of music since they’re eating in a huge hotel restaurant in the middle of town.

Tactical Operations Computer Center 1:30 P.M.

Back at the (cough) Computer Center, Houghtaling struggles to figure out how in the hell he’s going to have ROTOR ready in 60 days while Obnoxious Comedy Robot, Willard, stands by making wise cracks. "Punch in all the impulse codes," Houghtaling orders before heading down to the tank to "trace the circuits by hand." Sure, I guess that sounds scientific enough for me. And get this, Willard hesitates to help because he’s afraid of electricity…but he’s a robot, get it? ha ha

Dr. Houghtaling: The new head of the world’s most advanced robotic lab.

Meanwhile in another lab, a young female researcher is minding her business while Shoe Boogie moonwalks across the lab in an painfully awkward attempt to woo her. Frustrated by her continued reluctance to share her phone number with him, Shoe Boogie removes his Walkman headphones and casually tosses them onto some nearby electrical equipment so he can get a little closer to his prey. The woman eventually leaves in disgust after having endured Shoe Boogie’s futile attempts to pick her up.

The first thing I agree with in this movie

After shooting off a lame parting jibe in her direction, Shoe Boogie shrugs (I’m guessing rejection by the fairer sex is a large part of his life) and picks up the headphones with his switchblade comb causing an electric spark and…I think you can see what this is all going to lead to.

Safety protocols? We don’t need no stinking safety protocols!

Later that day we see Coldyron sitting in his truck outside a convenience store. Maybe he’s considering applying for a job now that his career in advanced robotics research has been shot to hell. After a moment or 2 some hoods pile out of a car and saunter into the store. Coldyron, sensing trouble, approaches their car and asks the driver to give him change for a dollar. I’m not sure what all this is about, but Coldyron points out that it would give him extra time to get away if he did because, ugh. Whatever. Hilariously, Coldyron goes over to a newspaper machine and purchases a paper with a handful of coins…but the bad guy didn’t give him any change! OK, now I get it: Coldyron bought the paper so he could conceal his gigantic pistol from the bad guys when he is inevitably forced to confront them. Seeing a guy looking suspiciously watching him from a payphone, Coldyron walks over and promptly begins whooping his ass! Lucky for Coldyron this was the robbers’ look out; what if it actually was some poor dude on the phone? Well, the robbers pour out of the store with a female hostage and a Mexican stand-off ensues. "Easy, Greasy…" Coldyron says to the Latino guy holding a gun to the woman’s head, convincing me that Coldyron should stick to robotics and not hostage negotiation

After some "tense" banter, Coldyron yanks out his enormous silver spray-painted toy pistol from the newspaper and blows the guy’s head off. In the commotion the woman hostage breaks free and proceeds to kick her captor’s ass with a few well placed pseudo-fu strikes. Coldyron doesn’t bother breaking up the fight between the woman and her assailant; he just watches with a look of professional admiration and remarks "Hey, lady, good job!" when she finally chokes him out. It must be a Texas thing.

Thursday 8:00 P.M.

As we see from the time stamp, it’s now 8 P.M. which means Coldyron has been waiting for the cops to show up for the last 4 hours. I guess crime really is bad in that area.

"Next time, don’t use this," says the local investigator handing back Coldyron his pistol, "the ambulance guys don’t like picking up body pieces with a pooper-scooper." (Wow, he’s so jaded!) "I don’t like it even more," cracks Coldyron in an odd line. The other cop suggests that Coldyron return to the relative safety of the research lab and not hang out in the streets with the "real" cops. To be honest, I found this criticism a bit odd since Coldyron handled himself pretty well in the situation.

Back in the lab Houghtaling and Willard are puzzled by the fact that all the batteries in the lab are drained of charge. (Uh oh…)

"You don’t think…" Houghtaling ominously says while tilting his head in ROTOR’s direction.

"He looks OK to me," Willard reassures him after a thorough 1 second peek into the tank.

Right after the 2 idiots leave the lab we see ROTOR reach up from his "suspension vault" and remove the flimsy plastic tank top. Using a POV shot with a strange pink tint, ROTOR stumbles around in the conveniently empty police station where he quickly finds the locker room and retrieves his uniform from his locker. (!) I guess the Dallas Police Department thought it would be prudent to make available a locker and uniform even though it’s going to be 4 years before the first prototype is ready. We wouldn’t want ROTOR running around nude in the off-chance of accidental activation, now would we?

Give him a locker…who cares if he won’t be ready for another 4 years.

With his custom-fitted leather uniform, ROTOR leaves the lab and heads down to the motor pool. For some reason there are rows and rows of plastic chairs set up…why? Who knows. I guess it was to show us how awesomely determined ROTOR is as he pushes his way through the sea of chairs. What’s wonderfully amusing about this shot is that it was obviously much more difficult for the actor to push his way through the chairs than they’d expected as you can plainly see him struggling several times to untangle his feet from the chair legs and continue through the ever growing mass of tangled furniture accumulating in front of him.

(Damn!…this was harder than I thought…)

Now we see what ROTOR struggled so hard to reach: his very own super-duper motorcycle standing on display (cordoned off in the middle the garage with little velvety ropes no less). Yep, even though he wasn’t scheduled for over 4 years, ROTOR’s motorcycle is gassed up and has the key in the ignition. A quick rev of the throttle and ROTOR roars out of the completely unguarded motor pool and into the night.

Friday 1:56 A.M.

Cut to a dark highway where a young couple are driving along discussing marriage and such…you know: character development. The young woman in the passenger’s seat, Sony, wants to get a career after her marriage to Soon To Be Dead Guy and blah blah blah. Thankfully, the dialog is interrupted when ROTOR pulls them over for speeding. (You know the dialog is bad when you’re happy to see ROTOR!)

ROTOR dismounts his motorcycle, which must be equipped with side-mounted spot lights given his insane silhouette in the darkness, and calmly struts over to the car. The driver gets out and awkwardly attempts to bribe him. Well, ROTOR quickly judges him guilty for speeding and puts a bullet through his head! Wow! For speeding? Who programmed this thing? Anyway, Sony leans over in her seat and very awkwardly "accidentally" pushes horn which deafens ROTOR and paralyzes him with pain! Let me get this straight: an amazingly advanced robot that is defeated by honking your car horn? Whatever.

With ROTOR holding his head in agony, Sony backs up the car and screeches away, but after a couple of minutes she decides to pull to the side and "talk this over". Yeah, I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason that the cop killed your fiance for speeding. When ROTOR eventually catches up, he thrusts his arm through the window and tries to grab Sony. (I guess Coldyron didn’t get around to finishing the "Just Open The Door" part of ROTOR’s programming.) Sensing that rational conversation isn’t one of ROTOR’s strong points, Sony speeds off.

Friday 3:00 A.M.

Cut to see the local cops investigating the crime scene. One of the investigators opens the dead man’s hand and removes a police name tag embossed with the name "ROTOR". So the Dallas police actually made ROTOR a nametag? Well, wasn’t that considerate, trying to make him feel like one of the guys.

Later that day Coldyron receives a call from Sergeant Mango (!) who tells him about ROTOR’s recent mayhem. Coldyron instructs Mango to keep quiet about the whole ‘crazed murderous robot cop on the loose’ problem. Yeah, you probably wouldn’t want to mention that to anybody. Wiping the sleep out of his eyes, Coldyron heads back to the lab to figure out how to reel in his rogue creation.

Meanwhile, Sony is still calmly driving around even though it’s been over 2 hours since her fiance was blown away. I’ll give her this much, she sure has her emotions under control. Sony eventually stops at a convenience store which is, duh, closed. Is it just me or is ROTOR still trying to catch up to her? Keep up the good work, ROTOR! Anyway, Sony calls the police and reports what’s happened (Good thing she drove around for a few hours first.) The 911 operator tells her to stay put because they can’t send any help to her since the murder took place in Dallas’s jurisdiction. (WHAT?) Wisely realizing that if she does as she’s told and stays put ROTOR will (eventually) catch up to her, Sony drives off.

Hey! What do you know: just as she pulls out, ROTOR arrives and scans the area with his, and I kid you not, "Sensor Recall" which allows him to see what has happened…in the past!!!! I couldn’t help but note that ROTOR has to take off his sunglasses for this feature to work. Must be something in the tinting.

Back at the lab Coldyron types madly at an old CRT terminal and asks the department’s mainframe about ROTOR’s status. To his dismay, the computer can’t find any information on ROTOR. (Strangely, in the beginning of the film, the last 2 words in the ROTOR acronym were "Operational Research" and have now been changed to "Operations Reserve". Ooops.)

After some more mad keystrokes, Coldyron discovers that ROTOR is no longer in his "suspension tank" and is "fully activated". With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Coldyron asks the computer one final question: "What is Rotor’s duty?" (Doesn’t Coldyron know? Isn’t he the lead programmer?) The computer responds with the words we all dread: "To Judge and Execute"…"Oh…God!" Coldyron murmurs upon reading this. But why is he shocked? The words "To Judge and Execute" are stenciled on his motorcycle for cripes sake!

Oh…So that’s his Prime Directive.

With a quick call to Willard, Coldyron confirms that there was a screw up in the lab last night but nobody thought to actually look in the tank and ensure ROTOR was still there. (Actually, Willard says that they did look in the tank but not the "suspension readout"…whatever. I sense a serious breach of protocol here…) With Willard hemming-and-hawing on the line, Coldyron hangs up and places a priority call to Mango. (Mango, really guys?) Mango informs Coldyron that ROTOR has gone nuts and is chasing a woman (i.e., Sony) all over hell and high water. Furthermore, they’ve told her to keep moving until the police get to her. (Why don’t the police just go to her? Better yet, why doesn’t she just drive to the police station?)

"Good. Nobody move until you hear from me," Coldyron instructs, which to me seems counter-productive to the whole "let’s get to her" plan.

Feeling chatty, Coldyron next places a call back to Commander Buglar to tell him, basically: nyah nyah nyah…I told you so.

"It would walk through a bus full of nuns to get to a jaywalker! ROTOR wasn’t ready..its brain functions are incomplete!" Coldyron tells Buglar, insisting that the Senator be informed of the day’s events. Buglar suggests instead that Coldyron take back control of the project and hunt down ROTOR personally.

"OK," Coldyron agrees, "and when I bring him back, I’ll ram him right down City Hall’s throat!" (Ok. But what did City Hall have to do with any of this?)

While Coldyron begins the hunt, Sony parks behind an all night cafe, sneaks in through the back door, finds a table and orders a cup of coffee. (I’m not sure how this could be considered "keeping on the move", but we have to give hapless ROTOR a chance to catch up with her.) In a strange line, the waitress apologized to Sony for having the TV on but they have to keep it turned on until the homecoming parade is over…even though it’s pitch black outside! ROTOR also manages to find the cafe…how? Who knows. Stopping in back, he pulls off his sunglasses and turns on his "Sensor Recall" ability which allows him to see Sony running inside a few minutes ago (you know what I mean). ROTOR busts into the kitchen and is immediately attacked by the fry cook. (If you think about it, the cook doesn’t know that ROTOR is a rogue robot cop; On the contrary, to him it’s just a cop coming in through the back door…and he attacks him with a knife?!) ROTOR dispatches the cook by shoving his face on the grill and I guess somebody thought it was funny to have the guy wear a pair of huge fake front teeth.

As ROTOR leaves the kitchen and struts into the dining area all the patrons flee in terror. (Why? To them it’s just a cop walking in.) Sony, of course, cowers in a booth because the script requires a slight struggle before she runs out the front door. Oh boy, here we go again: in comes a trio of rednecks who immediately attack what to them is just an ordinary police officer! After some lazy fighting, ROTOR beats the hell out of the guys, walks out front and looks inside Sony’s car. Hey, wasn’t her car parked in back? Strange. Maybe she moved it out front to at least give ROTOR a fighting chance…

Oh wait, Sony runs out to the adjoining gas station where the night clerk hides her in his kiosk. I’m not sure why he’s helping her since he hasn’t even seen ROTOR, so Sony must appear to him as a crazed woman running around in the middle of the night. Then again, maybe he’s just thankful for a little excitement with such a lousy job. Anyway, ROTOR uses his awesome rose-tinted "Sensor Recall" which promptly reveals Sony’s true location.

After ROTOR saunters over to the kiosk, he employs his usual method of apprehending people: stretching his arm out as far as he can and trying to grab them. Sony skillfully evades capture by simply staying out of his reach and crawls out the back door where she runs to a nearby semi-trailer truck. The truck driver, seeing a damsel in distress, hides her in the cab and confronts ROTOR with his pistol. Not to beat a dead horse, but again, to the truck driver this is just a normal cop chasing a perpetrator. Whatever. ROTOR shoots him and he shoots ROTOR back. Exciting. When ROTOR drags himself back to his feet, Sony easily paralyzes ROTOR by honking the truck’s horn. (OK, I’m thinking a serious re-design is needed here.)

But, heck, it’s all good because Coldyron drives up (how did he know she was there?) and exchanges a few punches with ROTOR. Obviously ROTOR can’t be beaten hand-to-hand (but a horn, yes) and quickly knocks Coldyron on his ass before attempting to get Sony by, yes, reaching through the window as far as he can. Using the always successful tactic of simply backing up out of ROTOR’s reach, Sony slips out the other door and runs away. Coldyron tries to buy her some time by shooting/punching ROTOR a bit more, but to not much good. Just as ROTOR is about to slam the crap out of him yet again, Coldyron produces a golden metal thingee which cause ROTOR to stop and pull back. Why…what could this thing be? I hope we find out later…

Keeping in line with the film’s modus operandi:

• ROTOR tries to grab Sony
• Arm not long enough
• Sony’s runs away
• ROTOR gives chase

ROTOR hops onto his motorcycle and pursues Sony into the darkness. Back at the service station, Coldyron crawls into his truck and raises Sony on his CB radio. (Sony has a CB radio in her car? Turned on and tuned to the same channel Coldyron just happens to be using? Wow.) "The cop’s name is ROTOR…he’s gone renegade," Coldyron gasps, "Just keep moving!" Without much choice (and nothing else in the script for her to do), Sony agrees to just drive around…and around…and around until Coldyron returns with help. After a short discussion of where to meet, they agree to hook up at 4 P.M. at Cain’s Fishing Lodge. Rather unbelievable Sony is familiar with the lodge’s location. I guess it’s because she’s such the outdoorsy type.

Anyway, with Sony driving around as bait, Coldyron places a call to "Houston…Texas". Boy, that was nice of Coldyron to clarify which Houston he was trying to call…and sure enough, we get another time stamp:

Houston, Texas Friday 5:45 A.M.

Welcome to the residence of Dr. Steele. An extremelybuff woman who is, as you recall (or not), the creator of ROTOR’s ultra-secret chassis. (The one made of the "obscure numbered" alloy.) It looks like Steele has just returned from working out at the gym before a putting in a hard days robotic chassis design and it’s only a quarter to six. Tough broad. Steele happens to catch the last bit of Coldyron’s message on the answering machine explaining that ROTOR is out and on the loose and, boy, could he use her help.

Hey it’s another time stamp:

Friday 8:30 A.M.

Cut to a mechanic’s garage where ROTOR is fixing up his motorcycle and treating himself to a little juice from a car-battery charger. Since electricity is ‘cool’, the scene goes all ‘negative’ when ROTOR charges himself up. The local grease monkey sees all this and finds it so terrifying that he flees the scene hollering "Feet don’t fail me now!" and jumps into the back of a random passing pick-up truck. I guess that was supposed to be funny in a Good-Old-Boy sort of way. Ugh…but hey: This was the first random civilian that didn’t immediately attack a police officer.

After picking up Steele at the airport, Coldyron drives her to a local hotel. This gives the viewer pleeeeenty of time to hear some more back story.

"I feel like old friends. You know, we got to know each other’s papers and mathematics pretty well," says Steele.

Not to be outdone in the flattery department, Coldyron responds in kind, "Your designs on the combat chassis are the most brilliant I’ve ever seen."

"It was nothing without your own brain matrix."

Man, I just love realistic scientific jargon, don’t you?

After some more blabbing, Steele admits that it’s impossible to bring ROTOR in. (So why did you fly all the way to Dallas at the drop of a hat then?!) Coldyron disagrees, and shows her the golden de-activation key. So…maybe they have a chance after all. Regardless, they better speed things up because there’s only 15 minutes left in the movie and I’m getting tired.

Hot hotel check-in action!

When Steele and Coldyron check into the hotel, they discover that their room is #222. "Great…that’s his badge number," Coldyron wryly notes.

"Superstitious?," Steele jokes as she asks for another room just as well, "There’s no sense in tempting reality too darn much." (huh?)

"Were we playing God, breathing life into our artificial Adam?" Coldyron waxes poetic before going on to quote a few portentous lines from Milton!.

"Let’s go get ‘im!" Steele chimes in. Yeah, let’s cut the crap and get to some more goofy action scenes.

Back outside and driving around, and boy, do I love driving scenes, Coldyron explains to Steele that ROTOR is programming himself as he goes.

"Oh God! The brain matrix is modeled after your own lower brain functions!" Steele realizes, "To combat pure will, you’ll have to use pure illogic!" …and I must admit that she’s smarter than I am because I have no clue what she’s talking about.

"What do you mean?" Coldyron asks.

"You’ll have to allow yourself to fail: use your failure against him."

(Whadda whadda?!)

"Great, but I don’t know what any of that means," Coldyron admits.

"Let’s hope you never have to find out."

So…..huh?! It doesn’t matter whether Coldyron understands how to defeat ROTOR or not? What? Oh…forget it.

Friday 2:30 P.M.

Cut back to see Sony driving under a highway underpass that, surprise surprise, ROTOR just happens to be waiting on. As you can see by the timestamp, it’s now 2:30 P.M., which means that Sony’s been on the run nonstop for the last 12 hours since her fiance was shot. Yeah. That’s believable. ROTOR guns his motorcycle engine and gives chase.

Back with the others, we hear that Steele has come up with a ‘theory’: "What if I force his substructure plates apart?"

"If you got that close you could use the key," Coldyron reminds her.

"If I got that close, finding the keyhole would be the last thing on my mind…"

So, let me get this straight…you need to physically insert a key into ROTOR to deactivate him?! You don’t have a radio-controlled device for this? If I remember correctly, Americans did possess that sort of technology in 1988. (Garage door openers, anybody?) Oh, and Steele doesn’t know where the hole is…and she designed him! Sheesh!

Look! ROTOR has managed to catch up with Sony…again. (How? Ohhh…Recall Sensor; how could I ever forget?) For once Sony actually does something intelligent and runs him off a cliff destroying his motorcycle in the process. (As suggested by the small pile of burning twigs a stagehand places a safe distance from the bike.) For some reason Sony decides that it would be better to set off on foot into the wilderness instead of driving away, because, hey, how else is ROTOR going to manage to catch up with her by the end of the movie?

Muh bike! They busted muh bike!

Soooo…Sony runs around killing time waiting for Coldyron. A cut-away shot of her wrist watch reveals that it’s 4:10, which means that she’s been on the go for over 14 hours. Man, I bet she’s getting tired by now. (And she hasn’t even taken a single piss break!)

In the mean time, Coldyron and Steele have tracked ROTOR’s position by charting his "power surges" (just go with it). Coldyron pulls off to the side of the road and decides to hunt him down on foot.

"You don’t happen to know any Indian trackers, do you?" Steele asks in a cringe inducing moment.

"I used to spend every summer on the Indian reservation." says Coldyron says, "Will I do?"

"Ha! I’m like a cemetery: I’ll take anybody," Steele jests in a moment of levity. (Get it? "Any body". Yeah, I thought it was funny too. )

After a few seconds of looking at the ground, Coldyron finds a footprint. "Is it his?" Steele asks. "Well, it sure aint Pee-Wee Herman’s." (Man, talk about a movie dating itself.)

Meanwhile Sony finds a small boat and tries to float out into the middle of the lake without a paddle. And I mean that literally: she just kicks off from the beach and floats about 4 feet. It wouldn’t have made any difference even if she had a paddle because ROTOR shows up and drags her back to land by pulling on the rope Sony still has tied to the boat. Egads, m’Lady…use your brain, eh?

Fortunately for Sony, Steele also magically appears and blasts ROTOR in the back. Instead of continuing to blast him until he’s a pile of scrap metal, she tosses down the gun and starts pummeling on him. (You’d think that, being the actual designer of ROTOR’s substructure, Steele would know just how useless it is to punch on him.) In an odd bit of framing, Steele and ROTOR battle it out in the background while Coldyron helps Sony up to the truck (which is now magically parked at the lake!). Their struggles seem almost slow motion, as if they’re blocking out the fight for the next scene but didn’t realize they were in the shot and the director just decided to keep it.

Running out of options, Coldyron attempts to place ROTOR in a "stand down" mode by tricking him into thinking that all this was just a drill. I guess since ROTOR has "re-programmed" himself, he simply ignores his creator’s orders and shoves his gun in Coldyron’s face. Proving once again that he’s not quite ready for prime time, ROTOR’s crappy reflexes allow Coldyron to duck away and run off before he can even fire his gun. Man, I’d love to see ROTOR go up against the Terminator. That would be fun.

Oh, and again, Steele seems to materialize out of the ether and blasts ROTOR in the back with her shotgun. And again, she immediately tosses her weapon to the ground and starts punching the killer robot instead of blowing him to smithereens. As I expected, this proves to be a Bad Idea as ROTOR easily grabs Steele and commences to squeeze her to death, but before she dies she does get a chance to rip open ROTOR’s chest with makes the scene go all "negative-y" again for some reason. (I guess this was Steele’s "separate his substructure plates" plan that she mentioned in the truck. Wow. Good plan.)

Anyhoo, with Steele keeping ROTOR busy by letting him squeeze her to death, Coldyron produces his ultimate weapon: experimental detonation cord. (Remember that little shot from the beginning of the movie that just screamed PLOT POINT?) Sony quickly ties one end of the cord to the truck (won’t this destroy the truck when it goes off?) while Coldyron constructs a snare on the ground directly in front of ROTOR. The fact that even ROTOR manages to notice the snare speaks volumes about how lame this particular trap was.

Horns…a very serious design flaw.

Sony quickly realizes that Coldyron’s Amazing Det-Cord Snare Plan needs a little help and brings into play ROTOR’s greatest weakness: honking car horns. Blind with pain, ROTOR steps into the snare and Coldyron tightens the loop with a quick jerk on the cord. Defying all known laws of topology, Coldyron quickly fashions 3 new lassoes from the single length of cord (magic!) and promptly ropes ROTOR’s arms and neck, forcing him into a helpless ‘spread eagle’ position. Never mind that the lassoes are tossed from completely different directions than the one Coldyron is standing, but I’m wondering just what the ropes are attached to since a couple of them were tossed from the direction of the lake…

Anyway, just as ROTOR begins tearing himself loose his "electric discharge" ignites the detonation cords (I sense another design flaw here…) and BOOM…no more ROTOR. It’s unclear why the detonation cord didn’t destroy Coldyron’s truck as well since one end of it is anchored to the frame, but let’s not drag this out any longer than necessary.

Cut back to "now", i.e., the debriefing room where Coldyron has been retelling this entire story to the investigators. "I’m going to leave my report in my office," Coldyron concludes. "After that, I got a ranch. I got a horse. I got a pretty girl." Wow, is this guy romantic or what?

With his tale at an end, Coldyron struts from the interrogation room and out into the parking lot. To everybody’s great shock, Commander Buglar walks up behind him and blows him away with a shotgun! (I wasn’t expecting that, actually.) Standing over the body, Buglar stares into the camera and in his best Dirty Harry imitation grimly says, "Justice served…C.O.D." ( I have no idea what the whole "C.O.D." thing has to do with anything. Maybe it sounded "street tough" to one of the writers.)

Oh, and third, why kill Coldyron in the first place? If this supposed to be some sort of cover up, what about the years of robotics research, all of Steele’s work, the thousands of others that have worked on this project? Maybe he just had a personal grudge against Coldyron, ok fine, but then if you’re going to murder somebody, maybe you shouldn’t do it 5 feet from the entrance of the Dallas Police Headquarters. Just sayin’.

Fade to, (cough,cough), Oxford University where we see that Coldyron’s nephew, Brett, has received news of his uncle’s death via a letter from Commander Buglar. Corrupt to the very end, Buglar writes that he too grieves at the loss of Captain Coldyron, and that he was a brave man who died in the line of duty and blah blah. There just aint no justice in this world, is there?

As we proceed into the credits (happily), Brett engages in his own voice over explaining how, over time, he studied his uncle’s research papers and gleaned enough to create his own ROTOR…this time a "ROTOR II" in the form of Steele. So this movie ends on yet another bizarre note: how the hell did Brett know what Steele looked like so he could base his robot’s appearance on her? I thought maybe Uncle Coldyron might have had some pictures stashed away in his research, but if I remember correctly they met for the first time on the day of the final ROTOR battle, didn’t they? Ahhh, maybe this will all be clear when ROTOR 2 arrives; but I doubt it.

My work here is done.

The End.

Dennis Grisbeck (December 2011)

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“Beware SPOILERS, all ye who enter here…”

OK,
I managed to sneak out to the movies last Friday and see the new “The Thing” with some friends and, boy, I really, really wanted to like the movie more than I did, but I just couldn’t.

Why not?:

1) No character development
It seemed like every time somebody got killed I was like…”Who was that?”. The characters just seemed to exist solely to be killed by a monster. You never really saw anybody DO anything except drinking and getting killed. (Yeah, I know, the Doctor and the helicopter pilots had things to do, but, for example, who was the other woman on the post? What was she doing there? etc etc.)

2) No sense of “Who Dunnit?”
People just seemed to be inexplicably infected just to be able to move along to the next “gross-out transformation scene”. In the first one (1982), I was constantly trying to figure out who was alone with who?; where was he just now?; etc etc. Here, people suddenly got a weird look on their face and….”BLARGH! I’m a Thing! Look how gross I am!”

3) CGI
The creature effects ranged from Good to really, really bad. When the first thing popped out of the guy on the helicopter I was thinking, “oh no…that’s pretty bad.” And after that, I just could never really get back “into” the movie. Why couldn’t they just create real models of the monster like they did before?! It just totally ruins the mood when you can see that it’s a cartoon hand/head/tentacle/mouth etc…ugh. What a bummer.

4) The “Thing”
This monster in no way acted like the “Thing” should act. The Thing is supposed to hide, lay low, and then strike when somebody is isolated. The “thing” in this movie just seems to pop out of somebody and go ape-shit trying to kill everybody in the room, chasing people down hallways, etc. etc. It never seems to try and run away into the darkness and snow to hide like before. Kind of strange.

5) The UFO
Oh boy. Why? Still money left over in the CGI budget?

Now, before you complain that I’m a grumpy old man, here’s what I did like:

The final tie-in with the previous film is well done. (But the dog doesn’t look the same, but, hell, let’s overlook that.)

The Norwegian actors are fun to see and hear, and I’m glad they weren’t totally overshadowed by the Americans. (I live in Norway, so maybe I’m a bit biased:) )

By the way, why did they have to go all the way to America to hire a lousy paleontologist? And why were the helicopter pilots American? As one reviewer pointed out: it’s too bad the studio didn’t have the balls to film the movie entirely in Norwegian with English subtitles…that would have been cool.

Curious to hear what other people think as well.