Audience Member
I was shocked to discover this was from 1995! This had 80s low budget sci-fi written all over it. Fun premise of a sci-fi action film. The military developed a cybernetic soldier that ends up going rogue with nuclear launch codes because it received conflicting orders (conspiracy!), so a ... "band of nubile coed soldiers" (:P) are sent to destroy it. The execution is horribly poor. MVP Props go to Kristen Dalton who looks fantastic with her red hair and carrying a huge gun. Adam Baldwin also gives a quality performance, more than the film deserves. It's no wonder those two still have careers.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/27/23
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Audience Member
Only for the costumes. And the explosions.
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/24/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This isn't a Poundland purchase, although it would presumably fit right in with their product. Heck, I didn't pay for it at all - it's a "watched on Movies4Men2 at 1am" film. I think it's quite legitimate that people wouldn't have heard of this film, as a casual view of the promotional literature would leave you a little bit cold. But, you know what? It's really pretty good!
First things first - throughout this film you'll be going "hey, I remember that person!" as the cast is full of dependable names from all sorts of B-pictures like this one. You get Paul Gleason, the Dean from "The Breakfast Club"; Ed Lauter, that guy who always plays bald drill sergeants who isn't R Lee Ermey; the ex-girlfriend from "Better off Dead", and Patrick Swayze's brother, to name but a few. What's called in the business "That Guy" syndrome . Anyway, Gleason and Lauter, as Dr. Parker and General Roberts, find out about a terrorist group who've managed to steal the launch codes for 250 nuclear weapons, and dispatch the experimental "Digital Man" to deal with it.
One easy way of dating this film to pre-9/11 days is that the terrorists aren't Muslims. In fact, they look like a group of eurotrash assholes who just emerged from some expensive club on the riviera after sexually harassing women, and decided to go blow up the world. Digital Man is Matthias Hues, a man who almost literally has appeared in more bad films like this than I've had hot dinners...but he's playing a robot, a casting choice that actors of Hues' ability must be delighted about. He's a super-robot, fully armed to do all sorts of cool things, but he's not quite finished yet. Subordinate Captain West, played by Adam Baldwin off of "Firefly" and "Chuck", makes the decision to dispatch Digital Man, and it's on.
He makes short work of the eurotrash, and we then cut to the heroes of the film, a small group of marines on some virtual-reality training exercise. Led by Sergeant Anders (Ken Olandt, who was also in one of my favourite 80s horror films, "April Fools Day"), they're a fine selection of broad types - the hot tech-wizard woman; the ass-kicking woman; the quick-talking black dude, and the martial-arts-loving Asian dude. This group is introduced to us at the same time as we find out Digital Man's evacuation ship was sabotaged...by Gentle Ben!* Curse him! DM's ship crashes near the tiny village of Badwater, so he goes off to find a place to transmit those launch codes he retrieved back to base, while the marines are tasked with finding the missing-presumed-rogue DM.
The pieces are in place, and I've not spoiled too much of the action, I hope. As I read more film reviews, I notice that the good ones don't just tell you the entire plot - I'd like to get better at this game, so here goes. I think the people who made this film had seen "Tremors" more than once, as there's elements of comedy woven in with the fairly serious business of monster-killing (although this film is neither as good nor as funny as Tremors). Most of the cast, with the honourable exception of Adam Baldwin, I think realise they're in a trashy film and have a bit of fun with it - the line between serious genre film and parody is skirted with in the same way that a film like "Torque" did.
I'd suggest that there was some disputing the tone of the film with the director, whose work - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0744985/ indicates a love for cheap sci-fi,horror and similar genre work. Or it could just be me trying to make more of a film, because I happen to like it. I think there's a lot to like here, though. One of those little touches in films that bugs me is when you see a flashback from someone's point of view, the shot is always third-person, showing the person whose eyes we're supposed to be seeing out of, in the shot. This film does it right, and it's unusual enough that I felt the need to mention it. It's got one of the best casts ever assembled for a film of this type, it's got fun, a few nice twists and turns along the way, and it never slows down.
Rating: 3.5 secret cyborgs out of 5.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Very cheap feel, and a very ordinary and predictable action.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Matthias Hues is a fucking beast
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/12/23
Full Review
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