This one is an interesting one. A bit of an homage to 80s sci-fi and horror, by a Brit who worked with big effects guys like Rick Baker and Stan Winston. Ventured out to do this little ditty as his directorial debut. And for a small budget sci-fi horror flick with a lot of obvious influences, it’s a decent ride. Got him the chance to direct Wesley Snipes’s Blade and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen after that. Which, unfortunately for him, apparently sucked so bad they won’t even let him direct traffic now. Allegedly. I dunno, this one is a cool enough smaller budget genre pic.
Super Megacorporation Chaank has their hand in the weapons and military space. But from the opening, we see there might not be the best integrations of technologies. Their new CEO, Something-or-other Cale, isn’t on board with all the secrets, and wants to help promote transparency to help the company turn a new leaf. Unfortunately for her, the rest of the company doesn’t exactly want that. And their freaky-deaky weapons engineer Dante (a gleefully skeezy Brad Dourif) might have his own personal machinations of...well… Let’s just say the Dude totally wants to bang the new CEO. It’s...kinda awkward, really. Then a killer robot and some techno-not-treehuggers get involved somehow and it’s pretty much non-stop crazy from there.
This is not exactly the most original of stories, but it knows that and gives some nice unsubtle winks and nods through throughout. Visually and storyotrically, it has obvious influences from the likes of Blade Runner, Aliens, an Oreo-less RoboCop. Shit, throw Die Hard in there too. All you have to do is listen to the character names to know what’s what there. Brad Dourif gives a fine performance as the kinda-genius longhair engineer goth punk who hacks all! And Ely Pouget as the main does a decent enough job holding her own in what is essentially a love letter to 80s sci fi horror and practical effects. The CGI? Seriously, TRON had better computer effects, but again, low budget and it works here for the little that it is used including basically a CAD fly-through. Added bonus is some big fuck-off sword teeth and...well, what fuckin more do you want than big fuck-off sword teeth?!?
