baumgart@esquire.dpw.com (The Phantom) (09/26/90)
HARDWARE
A review in the public domain
by The Phantom
(baumgart@esquire.dpw.com)
The Phantom has always thought of bad films as diseases. In order
to survive them, one must either immunize oneself beforehand or find an
antidote afterwards.
This week, the Phantom plans to do both, as the film to which he
was just subjected was so indescribably bad, so laughably awful, so
unrelentingly stupid, that neither immunization nor antidote alone will
suffice. Fortunately for his sanity, he rented THE GODFATHER earlier
this week, so he went into HARDWARE knowing that no matter how bad it
was, he would still be able to walk out of the auditorium with fond
memories of an excellent film -- even if it wasn't the film he had just
seen.
Though he didn't think that such precautions would be necessary
with the subject of this review. Believing that good previews, good
commercials, and what seemed to be raves from Wes Craven, Clive Barker
and Fangoria magazine (prominently displayed in the full-page New York
Times ad for the film) portended a good new horror film, he didn't think
twice about recommending it to two of his like-minded friends. After
all, while he would never assume that there was anyone else who would
enjoy watching, say, THE FIRST POWER with him, here was a film that
might even be in the same class as HELLRAISER or perhaps ALIEN. Surely,
even if it wasn't quite up to that level, it would at the very least be
entertaining, or gory, or something.
Well, no. Instead, the Phantom found that even the aura of THE
GODFATHER couldn't save him; instead, he'll have to find an antidote
this evening in order to rid his system of the poisonously bad trash he
had just seen. One obvious antidote to HARDWARE is ALIEN, one of the
dozen films that HARDWARE either pays homage to or rips off, depending
on how charitable one wants to be. Another possible antidote would be
THE ROAD WARRIOR, or HELLRAISER, or DEMON SEED, for there are bits and
pieces of all of these films scattered throughout the post-apocalyptic,
cinematic wasteland that is HARDWARE.
HARDWARE is a recipe film, which is a little different than a
high-concept film. To make a recipe film, you first line up all your
ingredients, which in this case would be ALIEN, DEMON SEED, THE ROAD
WARRIOR, MAX HEADROOM, and HELLRAISER. Then you add a half cup of one,
20 minutes of another, a few tablespoons of this and a pinch -- just a
pinch, mind you -- of imagination. Stir thoroughly, until the
ingredients mix just well enough to avoid litigation; you don't want the
lawyers to see whole chunks of, say, ALIEN, floating about in your stew.
The result? Something that's saleable and marketable, but which leaves
its diners wondering what it was that got them to try even a spoonful,
let alone consume all 90 minutes of it.
Since the Phantom is having a sale on similes this week, let's try
one more. HARDWARE is a camel of a film. Like THE FIRST POWER, it
becomes obvious after only 10 or 15 minutes that the film was not so
much imagined or created, but constructed and packaged. The Phantom
made the mistake in his last review of wondering whether horror films
were returning to their roots, whether films like THE EXORCIST III
marked the return of the intelligent horror film and an end to the
mind-numbing kill-by-the-numbers sequel-fests and poorly plotted and
scripted turkeys that have plagued horror phans for years now. But
HARDWARE is as unlike THE EXORCIST III as it *is* like THE FIRST POWER.
It is a film that proves that for every talented British horror writer
and filmmaker like Clive Barker, there must be at least as many
untalented hacks who are capable only of the poorest sort of plagiarism.
Or worse, are capable only of producing something like HARDWARE.
Now that he's gotten that out of his system, the Phantom will
attempt to explain HARDWARE's lame-brained plot. There is no way to
spoil a film like HARDWARE, as that implies that there might be
surprises to be given away, or unique plot twists or special effects
that might be ruined should audiences find out about them before seeing
the film. Too, the Phantom would like to think that anyone who sees
HARDWARE after reading his review must be a bit of a masochist, so
perhaps such a person would enjoy having the film's few plot twists
revealed so that he or she may be as fully miserable as possible while
watching it.
As the film began, the Phantom suffered a brief TOTAL RECALL
flashback, for the film seemed to be set on Verhoeven's Mars, sans the
fake looking Martian colony and the shoddy optical printing. But that
bit of prescience should have alerted the Phantom to the horrors yet to
unfold -- he should have heeded his sixth sense and ducked into DARKMAN
next door. Instead, he stayed to find out what this new twist on THE
ROAD WARRIOR might be like and found to his dismay that it was no twist
at all -- it was more like a cut-rate wholesale transplantation of about
15 minutes of that fine film. We see the lone man walking through a
desert; we see the ruins of a post-apocalyptic world around him; we see
the remains of civilization going about their miserable and dirty
business; we even see the curious mixing of the old and the very new
that was strikingly original when we first saw it in BRAZIL and MAX
HEADROOM some years ago, but which by now is little more than another
science fiction cliche.
But what we don't see is anything even remotely connected with the
rest of the film, with the exception of an old, junked robot that the
lone man finds buried in the desert. This robot is the star of the
second half of the film, but as it is found only minutes into the first
half, the director spends the remaining 43 minutes in the
post-apocalyptic city and surrounding areas. A travelogue it is not,
and neither George Miller nor Mel Gibson have anything to fear.
We meet the protagonist. We meet his girlfriend. The action
shifts to the girlfriend's apartment, where she works as an artist who
assembles junk -- mostly scrap metal -- as sculpture. The protagonist
brings the robot's head to the girlfriend as a Christmas present, and
she duly incorporates it into her art. But soon it turns out that the
robot was a Mark 13 military robot, a droid whose prime directive is to
kill people and who has an amazingly strong survival instinct. Uh oh.
The Phantom got good and worried at this point, and began to keep his
eyes peeled for the sudden appearance of Spring-Loaded Cats, blue fog,
pods, and little crab-like things that attach themselves to people's
faces. Alas, all he found was fog, some of it blue, and some of it
clouding whatever limited intelligence and originality the film had so
far displayed.
Shortly after revealing the robot's origins in a scene reminiscent
of THE EVIL DEAD, the robot begins to assemble itself (much like Frank
did in the attic in HELLRAISER), incorporating lots of scary-looking
hardware like buzz saws, drills, and anything else that was handy. And
as this happens, the film just as quickly reassembles *itself*, shifting
none too nimbly from ROAD WARRIOR mode to ALIEN mode. It was at this
point that the Phantom put his hands to his ears so that he wouldn't
have to listen to the sounds of breaking glass as logic and sensibility
jumped out the window. He did, however, hear their screams as they
plummeted to certain deaths.
Now that the robot has assembled itself, well, it must be time to
kill people? Well, no. Of course, one would think that a military
robot, programmed to kill, having rebuilt itself out of cables and
aluminum siding and can openers and whatever else happened to be lying
around, and having been left alone in an apartment with a defenseless
girl would do the only logical thing -- kill her. But of course that
couldn't happen, as both logic and sensibility were by then being rushed
to the hospital where doctors would labor fruitlessly over them for
another 40 minutes.
Instead we are treated to an extremely bad homage to the 1977
horror classic DEMON SEED. The robot stalks the girl -- very slowly and
looking very much like five poorly-skilled and underpaid technicians
were operating it -- and threatens her repeatedly with a drill bit that
looks quite a lot like ... well, the Phantom is sure you get the
picture.
It does kill someone, of course, and eventually other people show
up and try to kill it. In between, the apartment's lights flash on and
off, circuits short-circuit endlessly, hidden strobe lights are
employed, and the audience is entertained with simulations of the
robot's vision that were taken from the same kitchen cupboard that holds
PREDATOR and WOLFEN.
Finally, the film winds down and in its last 15 minutes stirs in a
few tablespoons each of the endings to BLADE RUNNER, ALIEN, and THE
WIZARD OF OZ. Really. There's also a nice reverse homage to WAIT UNTIL
DARK along the way, but that one brief scene is the only glimmer of
intelligence in a film that is otherwise as intellectually arid as the
post-apocalyptic wasteland in which it is set.
It has been a long time since the Phantom was so disappointed with
a film, so misled by its advertising, and so saddened by the terrible
waste of not just one or two, but dozens of the good ideas, clever and
suspenseful scenes, and special effects that have until now brightened
and enlivened the horror genre. There is quite literally no reason to
see this film, even on video. In his review of THE EXORCIST III, the
Phantom remarked that it was even worth $7.50, the extortionate price of
a movie ticket in New York City. Well phans, HARDWARE isn't even worth
a 99-cent special at Blockbusters. It is redeemed only because it makes
nearly every other horror film look good in comparison, and because it
reminds everyone who sees it of the dozens of excellent horror films
from which it labors so hard to steal.
: The Phantom
: baumgart@esquire.dpw.com
: {cmcl2,uunet}!esquire!baumgartreistad@cs.uoregon.edu (Brian Reistad) (09/26/90)
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