I wish I could select "0." On a friend's suggestion, I saw this movie in the theater in 1990 and the memory was such that it took many years of therapy to be able to cope in society once more...
I realize that hard-core sci fi fans do not care much for realism or continuity but let's consider the plot here (SPOILER alert).
The movie starts out in this hot red desert like world. We're not sure if there's been some apocalypse or it's just your run-of-the-mill science fiction dystopia. No explanation is given for why some things look like a wasteland and some things are built up and futuristic in their technology.
Moses is a Marine or some kind of soldier but he never seems to report for duty. He gets this robotic head from a scrap dealer for his live-in girlfriend Jill, who's an artist. They talk about children and Moses says that he's "given up" on that idea a long time ago. There's the suggestion that some calamity has made people sterile. Despite this, I seem to remember a reference in the movie about the government sterilizing people. Say what? The robot head manages to build itself a body from Jill's artistic scrap supplies and proceeds to go on a killing spree. It seems that the government has created the "MARK 13" android to hunt down the populace to stop overcrowding. Say what again? People are sterile or being sterilized, the world outside their city is a wasteland and overpopulation is a concern? Moses has a friend, some sort of space jockey named Shades. With the world so dystopian, it's a bit odd that people are still going into space. Anyway, it's up to these three to try to stop the MARK 13.
As overdone as this plot is, you might say it's okay for a late night movie on Channel 5 but then suddenly there is a sideplot of this pervert who likes to spy upon Jill. He calls her up and says he wants to do something rather pornographic with a string of popcorn. When this line was uttered, everyone in the theater about gasped or laughed in embarrassment. What the point of this was, who can tell. Of course, the MARK 13 blasts him in short order so the screenwriter obviously didn't care.
Bullets and shotgun pellets have no effect on the MARK 13. Worse, the robot kills off the main character Moses. Okay fine. But Moses dies with a big chunk of the movie left! Shades? Well he's too busy getting wasted on some sort of drug. That leaves Jill. Mind you, all kinds of small arms don't work on the thing but Jill's baseball bat slays the beast. My friend dubbed it "the emotional baseball bat." One of the songs in the movie was a repetitive track with the lyrics "This is what you want, this is what you got." As we left the theater, one of the group I was with got up and said "This is what we wanted...and this is what we got."
I realize that hard-core sci fi fans do not care much for realism or continuity but let's consider the plot here (SPOILER alert).
The movie starts out in this hot red desert like world. We're not sure if there's been some apocalypse or it's just your run-of-the-mill science fiction dystopia. No explanation is given for why some things look like a wasteland and some things are built up and futuristic in their technology.
Moses is a Marine or some kind of soldier but he never seems to report for duty. He gets this robotic head from a scrap dealer for his live-in girlfriend Jill, who's an artist. They talk about children and Moses says that he's "given up" on that idea a long time ago. There's the suggestion that some calamity has made people sterile. Despite this, I seem to remember a reference in the movie about the government sterilizing people. Say what? The robot head manages to build itself a body from Jill's artistic scrap supplies and proceeds to go on a killing spree. It seems that the government has created the "MARK 13" android to hunt down the populace to stop overcrowding. Say what again? People are sterile or being sterilized, the world outside their city is a wasteland and overpopulation is a concern? Moses has a friend, some sort of space jockey named Shades. With the world so dystopian, it's a bit odd that people are still going into space. Anyway, it's up to these three to try to stop the MARK 13.
As overdone as this plot is, you might say it's okay for a late night movie on Channel 5 but then suddenly there is a sideplot of this pervert who likes to spy upon Jill. He calls her up and says he wants to do something rather pornographic with a string of popcorn. When this line was uttered, everyone in the theater about gasped or laughed in embarrassment. What the point of this was, who can tell. Of course, the MARK 13 blasts him in short order so the screenwriter obviously didn't care.
Bullets and shotgun pellets have no effect on the MARK 13. Worse, the robot kills off the main character Moses. Okay fine. But Moses dies with a big chunk of the movie left! Shades? Well he's too busy getting wasted on some sort of drug. That leaves Jill. Mind you, all kinds of small arms don't work on the thing but Jill's baseball bat slays the beast. My friend dubbed it "the emotional baseball bat." One of the songs in the movie was a repetitive track with the lyrics "This is what you want, this is what you got." As we left the theater, one of the group I was with got up and said "This is what we wanted...and this is what we got."