HARDWARE
A film review by Brian Reistad
Copyright 1990 Brian Reistad
Regarding the newly released movie HARDWARE, my recommendation is, don't waste your money. The first half of the movie is quite boring as the movie does not go anywhere. It has some visual artsy stuff, but is sorely lacking in plot. The second half is filled with hack and slash. As far as a horror type movie, the last part is yes violent. But the characters were flat and the setting/world situation was poorly developed.
Apparently, USNews [probably USA TODAY--moderator] gave it 3 stars (on what scale I don't know, but probably 4 or 5) and as one person commented sarcasticly on leaving the theater, "They were a little generous."
For my critique and trashing, see below, but be warned, I may give away part of the story.
Basic summary: The robot is dug up out in the desert and brought back to I think New York, where this sculptor uses its head in a piece of work. A scrap dealer is investigating the nature of the robot and finds it is the government's latest killing machine. But about this time the completely dismembered robot starts to piece itself together; i.e., it hands and such move around by themselves and repair the robot including animated cables. Once this is done, it goes on a killing spree in the sculptor's apartment, killing anything and everything. And coming back from being fire-bombed, cut in half and tossed out the window. All in all most of the characters die.
Trashing: The world is mostly desert and hot due to an apparent nuclear war, possible a 'small one' (if there is such :-;) and the city is flooded and thus motorboats are taxis. But despite the world disaster, the American society still exists, including the President and congress. And not only do they have radio, but a number of TV channels, including heavy metal music videos. Most of the people are struggling to survive and the government wants to institute population controls when it seems they would need people, unless this is to control the spread of mutant genes but this is never made apparent.
The robot itself is suppose to be a great killing machine with six primary limbs, weapons including chainsaw, claws, a drill, and a strong poison delivered through 6" long needles. However, it has an Achilles heel of being designed for the desert, moisture can affect its computer system. Well, for the latest in killing ability, it has no projectile weapons of any sort and its vision is via infra-red. But its programming does not allow it to distinguish between the hot oven and a person. The absurdity goes every further when the main character escapes the robot by crawling in the refrigerator, but doesn't shut the door. Her skin temperature could not cool down to the same temp as the inside of the fridge in a matter of seconds. Her body heat would really stand out in front of that back ground.
Those are some of the major things that disturbed me, but the movie was filled with many other silly things. Like the lady couldn't work her own computer system to override the emergency door lock. A security officer being sliced in half by the apartment doors which used pistons to shut them. And more.
Basically, there was no plot and I kept wondering where this was going. After the beginning scenes which looked somewhat promising, I realized that it wasn't going anywhere. If you want a violent movie, there are better ones as this one did not contain that much.
-- reistad@cs.uoregon.edu .
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