Death Machine (1994) Sci-Fi. 120 minutes. (R) for violence, sex Written and Directed by Stephen Norrington. Starring: Brad Dourif, Ely Pouget, William Hootkins, John Sharian Reviewed By Michael A. Turton
You know how it is. You're drifting around the video store in which, despite a selection which dwarfs the Library of Congress, you can't find anything. You're tired of Gong Li. Some slimeball has rented _Diva_. You've seen _The Seven Samurai_ umpteen times. The pickings in the Western selection are slim. So you mosey on over to the sci-fi and lo and behold! There is _Death Machine_! Your interest piqued by the photos on the box, you pick it up........
Watching _Death Machine_ is rather like being in a car accident. Everything happens so fast, the only way you can be sure that something did indeed occur is by the wreckage strewn everywhere. The plot of this movie is incredibly simple. A mad scientist, Jack Dante (played by the increasing typecast Brad Dourif) working on a supercombat part-human machine feels betrayed by his superiors when they fire him for killing some corporate officers with his pet, so he turns his invention on them. This machine, called the "Warbeast," looks like a skeletal cross between a Tyrannosaurus rex and Freddy Krueger, and has an appetite which outstrips either. It is indestructible and unstoppable, its miles of exposed wiring and delicate computer systems impervious to massive explosions in confined spaces. When it really gets fired up, the creature clicks its claws and spins its head back and forth, creating moments of unintentional humor in the middle of some rather touch-and-go scenes for the characters.
The film takes place inside the labrynthine complex where Dante works among his machines and computers. Bet you can't name ten other movies in which people in claustrophobic spaces are hunted by psychotic monsters! The sets were so full of odd corners, piping, wires, sealed doors and thick metal walls that they looked like leftovers from the _The Poseidon Adventure_, gussied up with shiny metal-and-plastic fittings to make them appear appropriately futuristic. The producers obviously could not afford expensive effects, so models were opted for in certain scenes. In my view, they should have waited until they had saved the money to cover the gap. I'll skip the obligatory gripe about Hollywood's inability to make a decent sci-fi film with so many wonderful books to choose from.
This film went by in a blur and it is hard to say what happened or why. Not that it matters much. At some point one of the men who went in with Dante's boss, Cale (Ely Pouget) puts on a fighting suit and becomes a robotic superman who fights with the Warbeast by punching it on its metal snout (no, I'm not kidding). Why not just pull the wiring out or poke a thick hydraulic finger into an on-board computer? It has all the usual flaws of action movies: actors who check their talents at the door, guns which never need reloading, injured people performing acts of superhuman strength and plot holes big enough to float the Seventh Fleet, complete with a psycho muttering the required cliched nonsense as self-justification. It really should come with a disclaimer: SOME SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF REQUIRED.
Despite its gaping flaws there is a certain compelling power to the film's furious pace, weird sets and comic book action. In more subtle directing hands and with a better script it might even have attained the minor cult film status it is so desperately yearning for. This movie isn't quite good enough to rent, but if it ever comes on late night TV and you're a little too tired to search for the remote, then it's worth a look.
Copyright 1998 Michael A. Turton
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