CRASH AND BURN

CRASH AND BURN

There's only a few things I look for in a B-Movie that I need in order for me to like it. Believe me, I am a harsh critic when it comes to movies which cost 75 to 100+ Million dollars, and I can scan through any movie and tell you what's wrong with it. When it comes to a low budget B-movie, you can have bad acting, cheapo special effects and sometimes bad music, and I can still like your movie, so long as it has an interesting plot, some good lines, and maybe a nice subtext, or any number of other consolations. When I watch an old B-Movie, there can be anything there for me to find to enjoy. If it turns ugly, I may turn ugly. Having said all that, I am now going to be a bit harsh on this film.

I like the setting, the pretense of this movie, after the economic crash, Unicom, a supercorporation has taken over America, the depletion of the ozone has caused global warming and you have your basic 'wasteland' and the people off living in domed cities (which you never see). Unicom is evil, computers have been banned, as well as robots because of various reasons including right wing religious reasons. A lone TV station in the desert is secretly sympathetic to the rebels, and our protagonist drives out to deliver some Freon from Unicom. He has no idea about the politics of the desert broadcasting station... Its a pretty good setup for a B-movie, and kind of raises your expectations. There's a bit of character development, well, at least for the female protagonist anyway. Acting not bad, music not bad, production value not bad, cinematography, not excellent but not bad...but as the movie goes on, I got the sneaking suspicion that these characters are the sort of characters you see only in slasher films... a couple whores, a fat greedy pig, a weird loner, a chick who's too good to be true, and a Fabio 90's male protagonist who belongs in a Richard Marx video...something's wrong here...the old man who runs the TV station is killed mysteriously by somebody he knows, somebody you don't see...then we get an explanation that a 'Synthoid' must have done it...a Terminator basically.

Okay, you've seen the cover, maybe the trailer, what about this giant robot shit? Oh, there's a construction robot alright, that is defunct, and like whenever a gun is introduced in the first act, you know it's going to be fired at some point, and that's all. I don't mind spoiling it for you because unless you're interested in watching a slasher movie in the guise of a 'futuristic post-apocalyptic thriller' then forget it. You don't see the giant robot until the very end of the movie DO ANYTHING AT ALL. This movie then proceeds to spend the next 40 minutes with shit like this: oh my god the power's out, then we must go fix it in the dark...lets split up...the whores take showers...people get it on...people start getting killed...there's even a scene stolen from THE THING to find out who the 'Synthoid' is...and in the end there is no point to this movie at all.

Is it poorly made for what it is? No, not really, but it is a big waste of time with not much to say. If you're entertained by long scenes of people walking down dark halls waiting for them to get killed by a 'psychotic' android with an attitude...yes...its like Jim Carey as the Terminator...with lines like "wanna play" you know the drill. Good god...this motivates me instantly to trash this movie for what it is. This was entertaining in GHOST IN THE MACHINE, because the rest of the film was comedic, and absurd, this movie is trying to be serious the whole way through...and then out with Freddy Krueger-bot. The thing is, it doesn't work, our Cyber-Jim Carey isn't funny, and even if he's supposed to be, it doesn't work in the movie at all. It is godawful stupid and basically ruins the whole movie, its sci-fi political ideas and turns into a big waste of time. When I don't like a movie, as I said, I will tell you, and it generally has nothing to do with how cheap and cheesy it is. This situation here is about story and writing, and I don't care how much they didn't spend on this movie, they wasted whatever they did spend. When you offend the sensibilities of the viewers you fail miserably. When you have a movie which is supposed to be a science fiction story about robots in the future, it is a very bad idea to rely on slasher movie cliches. When you're aiming to make a sci-fi movie about the future and robots...seriously...don't waste it by trying to make it into the next slasher movie. Yes, the whore gets it in the shower, and yes the fat guy gets it...yeah yeah... you see, you HAD some neat ideas, which I was following intently, and then you go and reach for the dumbest cliches to get you through your movie which for all intents and purposes, sucks. It is godawful not because of bad special effects, not because it doesn't have a star, not because it's cheap, not because of bad acting, but because its dull, with a predictable plot... if you want to call it a plot, which is utterly meaningless, and stupid, and because you tried to blend the sci-fi giant robot genre with a slasher film! Good god how stupid is that. I really wanted to like this film, but when the Terminator starts cracking serial killer type jokes when he's about to kill someone...you lose, and you lose bigtime with me. Thumbs down baby, because this movie could have been so much better, and it looks like you had yourselves a reasonable sized budget to make a fairly decent movie too. For this, I condemn your movie to the CYBER TRASH CAN! You have Crashed and Burned... Currently available on VHS used, it appears that FULL MOON released a DVD at some point, but like many FULL MOON DVDs, it is already scarce and expensive...but who cares, this movie isn't worth it, unless you like cyborgs with a slasher-serial killer 'attitude.'