If ever you want an example of a very 1980s movie, with soaring Pink Floyd imitation guitars, then make a note of Hardware. Hardware is actually, even at this early age, part of a robot tradition. Star Wars had been around for a while, and then there was The Black Hole (1979), Saturn 3 (1980), and Short Circuit (1986). I'm giving this movie a 7 because it entertained, but if I were a real movie critic I'd give it less. Almost all the camerawork is in a close-up range, and the robots field of vision was way too spludgey, a sort of amateur Predator vision. We needed wider shots to really see the robot, and we needed to see more of the city itself, not just the crazy lady's crazy artist's loft. Anyway, that's my take. I liked the soundtrack and the human characters, they were all really suitably post-apocalypse, and the general story made sense in a sci-fi fashion, and the ravages of the droid were suitably outrageous. I'd love to see it remade with a more modern take. This is definitely one for the archives.
171 Reviews
This movie is not as bad as it sounds
eraceheadd21 March 2000
This is a very cool little sci-fi flick. OK, it's no Aliens, but it has a lot of really interesting things happening. First off it has a slick look, filmed very well by first time director/writer Richard Stanley, a lot of strobes and brilliant colour give it a perfect setting for the `robot goes crazy' plot. I also liked the post-apocalyptic landscape, which I think worked well along with Iggy Pop's narration as `Angry Bob'. It takes a little while to build, but the ending packs a decent punch, along with just enough gratuitous violence to keep me happy. There are also plenty of religious references and imagery to look for, all centering around the `MARK 13 Cyborg.' So, if you like sci-fi, I think you should give this movie a try, it's a pretty cool ride with some very cool imagery.
Some nice touches, especially with the Mark 13 derivative.
Crazyfarts3 June 2006
The 21st century world is a radioactive wasteland as a result of a nuclear war. A traveling scavenger comes across the remains of a cyborg named Mark 13 in the desert; He salvages pieces of it. The cyborg head ends up with a metal sculptress, who is unaware of the cyborg's infamy as a governmental killing machine project that was scrapped due to its defects. Mark 13 reconstructs itself utilizing household appliances and metal parts, and goes amok.
Hardware is a movie that relies on its post-modernistic stylings to bring out its flavor but most of the time it falls flat. It's full of oddly placed music, I heard somewhere that the director Richard Stanley used to direct music videos, so maybe that explains a few reasons as to why this movie is the way it is. The red filter used through at least 50% of the movie can become highly annoying and get in the way of viewing some potentially good, violent scenes. Also the scenes which slowly push the plots progression could have done without the distraction.
Luckily enough, when the movie really gets going (it takes almost an hour!) its quite a fun ride of just extremely painful death scenes as the clunky robot Mark-13 chases down all humans in his way.
Hardware is a movie that relies on its post-modernistic stylings to bring out its flavor but most of the time it falls flat. It's full of oddly placed music, I heard somewhere that the director Richard Stanley used to direct music videos, so maybe that explains a few reasons as to why this movie is the way it is. The red filter used through at least 50% of the movie can become highly annoying and get in the way of viewing some potentially good, violent scenes. Also the scenes which slowly push the plots progression could have done without the distraction.
Luckily enough, when the movie really gets going (it takes almost an hour!) its quite a fun ride of just extremely painful death scenes as the clunky robot Mark-13 chases down all humans in his way.
Undeserving of its bad reviews... fun film!
Piotr-920 February 2000
After all the horrible things I heard about this movie, I wasn't expecting much when I found it for $3 in a pawn shop... and, after watching it a couple of times, I don't know what the hell people who say this is "the worst movie in the world" were smoking... because this is one of the best low-budget sci-fi flicks I have ever come across.
Though it is by no means a sublime piece of art, I find the fact that the plot concerns one woman and her boyfriend fighting off this robot in her apartment, with the collapsing world as a backdrop around them to be somewhat refreshing in an age of sci-fi films trying to be epic and ending up trite. Though clumsily written at times and with the robot looking almost ridiculous at points, we get a nicely shot, stylishly lit sci-fi thriller that takes place on a human scale and whose premise has enough depth, symbolism and irony to make it all worthwhile. Best film I have ever seen? Hardly. But the best deal I've had for $3 in a very, very long time.
Though it is by no means a sublime piece of art, I find the fact that the plot concerns one woman and her boyfriend fighting off this robot in her apartment, with the collapsing world as a backdrop around them to be somewhat refreshing in an age of sci-fi films trying to be epic and ending up trite. Though clumsily written at times and with the robot looking almost ridiculous at points, we get a nicely shot, stylishly lit sci-fi thriller that takes place on a human scale and whose premise has enough depth, symbolism and irony to make it all worthwhile. Best film I have ever seen? Hardly. But the best deal I've had for $3 in a very, very long time.
A pretty good, but derivative bleakly futuristic sci-fi flick
Woodyanders26 February 2006
Warning: Spoilers
By the early 21st century things have really gone miserably down the tubes: mass unemployment, never-ending ongoing wars, no rainfall in many a moon, the government sponsors mass sterilization, a dense cloud of radiation hangs heavily in the air, hard drugs have become legalized, that sort of hopeless, bummed-out stuff. Rugged mercenary Moses "Hard Mo" Baxter (toughly interpreted by Dylan McDermott) and his wastoid pal Shades (a marvelously manic, motor-mouthed dope-head turn by John Lynch) purchase some "junk" from a laconic, enigmatic "zone tripper" nomad (a creepy cameo by Carl McCoy, the vocalist for the British punk band Nephilim) to give to Moses' withdrawn, introverted recluse sculptress girlfriend Jill (superbly played with admirable spark and passion by the ravishing, flame-haired Stacey Travis) as a Christmas present. Said trash turns out to be a lethal, almost unstoppable android called Mark 13, a relentless killing machine specifically designed to curtail the teeming population. Mark-13 gets reactivated and goes on the expected grisly murdering binge. It's up to Jill to come out of her protective shell and fight back in order to defeat it.
Despite being met with an avalanche of extremely negative reviews by the mainstream press, I nonetheless actually ventured to a theater to catch "Hardware" during its fleeting theatrical run and found it to be pretty good. Yeah, the story is slavishly derivative and hackneyed, blatantly cribbing bits and pieces from "The Terminator," "ALIEN," "Predator," "Blade Runner," and practically every other post-nuke sci-fi/action picture made in the 80's, the pace tends to drag in spots, and it does indeed get very heavy-handed at times, with the labored use of slow motion proving to be especially clumsy and disruptive. However, the film's unflinchingly bleak, nihilistic tone, Simon Boswell's twangy, harmonic score, a wonderfully repulsive performance by the late, great William Hootkins as a vile, obese slimeball voyeur (in a nice touch of irony Mark-13 gouges his eyes out when it gruesomely kills him), the admirably frank depiction of the emotionally unstable relationship between Mo and Jill, the generously bloody and excessive gore set pieces (one luckless fellow gets messily bisected by a malfunctioning mechanical door), nifty bits by Motorhead's Lemmy as a coarse, crusty cab driver and the almighty Iggy Pop as the voice of profane, sarcastic disc jockey Angry Bob ("the man with the industrial d**k!"), Steven Chivers' bleached, smoke-streaked, dusky reddish-hued cinematography, the incredibly vivid and expansive set design, and director/co-screenwriter Richard Stanley's flashy, hyper-kinetic, raw-edged style, with a noted emphasis on bravura, Dario Argentoesque visual pyrotechnics (Stanley previously helmed a few music videos before making his directorial feature film debut with this movie), are all so expertly done that they almost manage to fully compensate for the crippling dearth of originality. Still, there's more hopped-up style than actual substance on display, so "Hardcare" doesn't completely cut it as a total winner. Nevertheless, said style is just dazzling and arresting enough to make this not half bad try a fair degree better than its largely crappy critical reception would suggest.
Despite being met with an avalanche of extremely negative reviews by the mainstream press, I nonetheless actually ventured to a theater to catch "Hardware" during its fleeting theatrical run and found it to be pretty good. Yeah, the story is slavishly derivative and hackneyed, blatantly cribbing bits and pieces from "The Terminator," "ALIEN," "Predator," "Blade Runner," and practically every other post-nuke sci-fi/action picture made in the 80's, the pace tends to drag in spots, and it does indeed get very heavy-handed at times, with the labored use of slow motion proving to be especially clumsy and disruptive. However, the film's unflinchingly bleak, nihilistic tone, Simon Boswell's twangy, harmonic score, a wonderfully repulsive performance by the late, great William Hootkins as a vile, obese slimeball voyeur (in a nice touch of irony Mark-13 gouges his eyes out when it gruesomely kills him), the admirably frank depiction of the emotionally unstable relationship between Mo and Jill, the generously bloody and excessive gore set pieces (one luckless fellow gets messily bisected by a malfunctioning mechanical door), nifty bits by Motorhead's Lemmy as a coarse, crusty cab driver and the almighty Iggy Pop as the voice of profane, sarcastic disc jockey Angry Bob ("the man with the industrial d**k!"), Steven Chivers' bleached, smoke-streaked, dusky reddish-hued cinematography, the incredibly vivid and expansive set design, and director/co-screenwriter Richard Stanley's flashy, hyper-kinetic, raw-edged style, with a noted emphasis on bravura, Dario Argentoesque visual pyrotechnics (Stanley previously helmed a few music videos before making his directorial feature film debut with this movie), are all so expertly done that they almost manage to fully compensate for the crippling dearth of originality. Still, there's more hopped-up style than actual substance on display, so "Hardcare" doesn't completely cut it as a total winner. Nevertheless, said style is just dazzling and arresting enough to make this not half bad try a fair degree better than its largely crappy critical reception would suggest.
Good idea, solid setting, horrible acting, boring pace
mark-15231 August 2005
Five out of ten stars is generous because this movie doesn't deliver on what it offers- a suspenseful fight for survival against a murderous monster fashioned from our own technology. The movie is set the better part of a century into our future. It is a future where humanity has nearly rendered the Earth uninhabitable by war and pollution. Life goes on, though. Huddling in their fortified and environmentally controlled shelters, pockets of humanity hang grimly onto life. Some occasionally go forth into the desert wasteland to scavenge what they can. One such scavenger unwittingly brings back a dangerous relic of the wars- a combat robot. Within the human compound- rather implausibly- the robot comes to life....
Thus ends the promising description on the VHS cassette case. And most viewers will be saving a good hour and a half of their lives if they stop right now and contemplate what a cool, suspenseful, and, yes, poignantly ironic story this movie could have been because, chances are, their imagination will be far more entertaining than what they'll get out of this movie. The acting was unconvincing, the plot ragged and badly tempoed, the special effects were not that effective. Worst of all, perhaps, what was supposed to be artistry and novel ingenuity came off as just plain weirdness for the sake of weirdness.
On the other hand, the film's music and scenery both did their parts to give the movie a definite "feel". As I watched it, I felt that the world in the movie was real, consistent, and believable. While hardly superb, these two aspects of the movie were, by far, the movie's high points and something cyberpunk aficionados could probably appreciate- so long as plot, acting, and dramatic tension aren't essential to enjoyment. Judging by the reviews of 9 and 10 out of ten, they were not needed hardly at all by plenty of viewers.
I give this movie eight out of ten for ambiance, music, and premise, and two out of five for acting, plot and story- they really were pretty abysmal. The quality of photography, editing, nor sound were not remarkable to me so don't influence my 5 out of 10. Only devoted future-punk or cyberpunk or post-apocalyptic sci-fi fans should give this film any consideration. I think just about everyone else will find the film pretty silly and boring.
Thus ends the promising description on the VHS cassette case. And most viewers will be saving a good hour and a half of their lives if they stop right now and contemplate what a cool, suspenseful, and, yes, poignantly ironic story this movie could have been because, chances are, their imagination will be far more entertaining than what they'll get out of this movie. The acting was unconvincing, the plot ragged and badly tempoed, the special effects were not that effective. Worst of all, perhaps, what was supposed to be artistry and novel ingenuity came off as just plain weirdness for the sake of weirdness.
On the other hand, the film's music and scenery both did their parts to give the movie a definite "feel". As I watched it, I felt that the world in the movie was real, consistent, and believable. While hardly superb, these two aspects of the movie were, by far, the movie's high points and something cyberpunk aficionados could probably appreciate- so long as plot, acting, and dramatic tension aren't essential to enjoyment. Judging by the reviews of 9 and 10 out of ten, they were not needed hardly at all by plenty of viewers.
I give this movie eight out of ten for ambiance, music, and premise, and two out of five for acting, plot and story- they really were pretty abysmal. The quality of photography, editing, nor sound were not remarkable to me so don't influence my 5 out of 10. Only devoted future-punk or cyberpunk or post-apocalyptic sci-fi fans should give this film any consideration. I think just about everyone else will find the film pretty silly and boring.
Obscure cult classic.
zulus8810 April 2011
Hardware is a quintessential cult film. Project of a young, troublesome director that was soon to vanish from the movie-making horizon. An ambitious but low budget science fiction that taps into a particular zeitgeist. An overwrought, philosophical flick that is fascinating even if it fails to deliver any real thrills.
Based on a short 2000 AD comic strip Shock!, Hardware is low on narrative content but it exploits its post-apocalyptic setting with a confidence and fidelity. Stanley manages to work around the budget restraints and turns all London based, indoor locations into a believably devastated landscape of a civilization in retreat. Flesh is consumed by overwhelming rusting metal and slowly decays amidst the ubiquitous pollution. It's a bleak even if not entirely original vision that here is pushed to the limit of being almost unpleasantly nihilistic.
Together with work of cyberpunk literature- Gibson's Neuromancer and some defining achievements of Japanese animé like Otomo's Akira (1988) and Fukutomi's Battle Angel Alita (1993) Stanley's film is a product of its times- anxious about the state of the environment and our place in the technological civilization on the threshold of the new millennium. It perhaps couldn't be made with the same infectious desperation pouring out of the screen at any other time in the history.
What it also shares with defining it literate and cinematic contexts is the same tendency towards gratuitous symbolism. Religious connotations (both Christian and Buddhist) between characters of Moses Baxter and deadly M.A.R.K.-13 are at times heavy handed but rewarding in the scale of the whole because of the consistency with which they are used and, at times, their detailed intricacy.
Exactly because philosophical rather than the narrative layer of Hardware comes to dominate the entire feature, Stanley's film becomes so dense, impenetrable and therefore intriguing. Film's colour palette, dominated by oligochromatic browns and reds adds to the overwhelming sense of endangerment even if the script, time and time again postpones the actual danger and fails to build up any tension. Added, voyeuristic sub-plot is appropriately disturbing and intense but serves little dramatic purpose.
Film delivers gore and sex, as expected but it's nowhere near as captivating or resonant as the overarching art style. In the last third, Stanley without any moderation delivers hypnotic and grotesque imagery that leaves the viewer confused but with a dominant sense of being a witness to a wonderful and bedazzling vision.
Verdict: Hardware is best approached not as it was advertised- a sci-fi action movie but rather a complex mantra; film of unified stylistic and philosophical vision that comes close to encapsulating both entertaining and intellectual properties of a masterful sci-fi. It is too aware of its real intentions too be fully appreciated by the mainstream audience but nevertheless remains a work of an intriguing and skillful director. If you fall for its depressing tone and appreciate cyberpunk influenced issues that it tackles you might find yourself coming back to it several times, despite its shortcomings.
Based on a short 2000 AD comic strip Shock!, Hardware is low on narrative content but it exploits its post-apocalyptic setting with a confidence and fidelity. Stanley manages to work around the budget restraints and turns all London based, indoor locations into a believably devastated landscape of a civilization in retreat. Flesh is consumed by overwhelming rusting metal and slowly decays amidst the ubiquitous pollution. It's a bleak even if not entirely original vision that here is pushed to the limit of being almost unpleasantly nihilistic.
Together with work of cyberpunk literature- Gibson's Neuromancer and some defining achievements of Japanese animé like Otomo's Akira (1988) and Fukutomi's Battle Angel Alita (1993) Stanley's film is a product of its times- anxious about the state of the environment and our place in the technological civilization on the threshold of the new millennium. It perhaps couldn't be made with the same infectious desperation pouring out of the screen at any other time in the history.
What it also shares with defining it literate and cinematic contexts is the same tendency towards gratuitous symbolism. Religious connotations (both Christian and Buddhist) between characters of Moses Baxter and deadly M.A.R.K.-13 are at times heavy handed but rewarding in the scale of the whole because of the consistency with which they are used and, at times, their detailed intricacy.
Exactly because philosophical rather than the narrative layer of Hardware comes to dominate the entire feature, Stanley's film becomes so dense, impenetrable and therefore intriguing. Film's colour palette, dominated by oligochromatic browns and reds adds to the overwhelming sense of endangerment even if the script, time and time again postpones the actual danger and fails to build up any tension. Added, voyeuristic sub-plot is appropriately disturbing and intense but serves little dramatic purpose.
Film delivers gore and sex, as expected but it's nowhere near as captivating or resonant as the overarching art style. In the last third, Stanley without any moderation delivers hypnotic and grotesque imagery that leaves the viewer confused but with a dominant sense of being a witness to a wonderful and bedazzling vision.
Verdict: Hardware is best approached not as it was advertised- a sci-fi action movie but rather a complex mantra; film of unified stylistic and philosophical vision that comes close to encapsulating both entertaining and intellectual properties of a masterful sci-fi. It is too aware of its real intentions too be fully appreciated by the mainstream audience but nevertheless remains a work of an intriguing and skillful director. If you fall for its depressing tone and appreciate cyberpunk influenced issues that it tackles you might find yourself coming back to it several times, despite its shortcomings.
It's not that bad, it's WORSE!
halfsquee20 April 2000
Warning: Spoilers
Ten years ago on a whim and "That looks interesting." my friends and I went to see Hardware the opening night. To this day, the only movie that has come close to being as bad is Cabin Boy, and that at least had one good scene. Spoilers!(If it makes you not want to see the movie, I accept donations and Thank You cards.)
Synopsis: Man brings robot head to girlfriend, she is an artist, and she puts head in a sculpture, then has sex with boyfriend. Robot comes to life, assembles itself McGyver style out of household parts(With nobody noticing) and kills everyone - 1. (BTW: Favorite method, neurotoxin with hallucinogenic effect.
Q: Where did it get this cool neurotoxin in an apartment?
A: Maybe it's a mixture of Palmolive and Liquid Plummer.)
Imagine 'The Terminator' filmed in one person's apartment, with a red lens over the camera. You have begun to understand this movie. Then add in a so-so sex scene, interspersed with shots of the fat, greasy, ominous sex maniac in the building across the street watching through a telescope. Toss in some attempts at scientific logic that make no sense: "It sees heat, I'll hide in the fridge!" "I can't unlock my own apartment door, but I can telnet into the robot's brain to ask "Why are you a killer?"
Wrap it all up with an end theme song, repeating "This is what you want, this is what you get" 200 times. Critics loved this movie. I think you would need to point a loaded gun at my head and count past 2 before I'd watch this movie again.
Synopsis: Man brings robot head to girlfriend, she is an artist, and she puts head in a sculpture, then has sex with boyfriend. Robot comes to life, assembles itself McGyver style out of household parts(With nobody noticing) and kills everyone - 1. (BTW: Favorite method, neurotoxin with hallucinogenic effect.
Q: Where did it get this cool neurotoxin in an apartment?
A: Maybe it's a mixture of Palmolive and Liquid Plummer.)
Imagine 'The Terminator' filmed in one person's apartment, with a red lens over the camera. You have begun to understand this movie. Then add in a so-so sex scene, interspersed with shots of the fat, greasy, ominous sex maniac in the building across the street watching through a telescope. Toss in some attempts at scientific logic that make no sense: "It sees heat, I'll hide in the fridge!" "I can't unlock my own apartment door, but I can telnet into the robot's brain to ask "Why are you a killer?"
Wrap it all up with an end theme song, repeating "This is what you want, this is what you get" 200 times. Critics loved this movie. I think you would need to point a loaded gun at my head and count past 2 before I'd watch this movie again.
I loved it, amazing movie
the_real_smile17 July 2021
I saw this movie when it came out on VHS and from then on every few years. What is it that makes this movie so addictive? It is the GREAT soundtrack "The order Of Death (This is what you want... this is what you get)" from Public Image Ltd.? The song being 37 years old still is great. Is the atmosphere in the movie? Yes, certainly, this is the kind of movie where the creative mind goes all ways in every scene, adding the extra dimension only so few movies have of not only watching a movie, but being 'in' it. The effects, for it's time pretty good, nowadays not but just like "Blade Runner" the viewer will accept it. In my book, this movie is a classic.
Brilliant 80's Sci-Fi
Ralphus223 May 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Hardware is an 80's/90's sci-fi classic. That it isn't better known, talked about and referenced more often, held up as one of the great sci- fi films of its time, is a terrible shame; a terrible shame, but, as some of the other reviews and board messages attest, not entirely a mystery.
Hardware is, for want of a better word, 'artsy'. This alone (regardless of how vague and amorphous a term it is) will scare off many. It is of its era and chooses to explore the cyber-punk/industrial aesthetic to the utmost. This will also polarize. Some here speak of a lack of character development. Perhaps. But in place of that, we get a kickass movie with a beautiful look, a wonderfully grimy feel, and an extremely effective sound(track) (among other things). Lack of character development matters when it matters but when there are other elements at play, doesn't need to be the be all and end all of a film's effectiveness. Those who cling to 'the rules' of movie-making (and who aren't film-makers themselves) have sucked too long at the teat of Mickey Mouse film studies courses and their pompously self-assured pseudo-intellectual creators. Sometimes we should just let a film and its maker 'be' what/who they are, without having to super-impose the rules and regulations we've received from elsewhere.
All that being said, here's why I think Hardware is a great film: it looks beautiful--in this regard, it doesn't hide its dues to Blade Runner; but if you wish to follow the lead of the greats, Blade Runner is a supreme model; I have no trouble with such a homage (copy). It delivers gore aplenty--as such, its a sci-fi/horror rather than straight sci-fi; horror fans should rejoice. The special effects are very good-- the director knows his limitations; he shows just about as much as he can without pushing it; the drab junk-techno design choice helps enormously in this regard. It's well-paced--everyone will disagree with me here; it lays down the beginnings of its minimal plot and sets out to share its aesthetic; it does this, I believe, at just the right pace; halfway through the film, when the mayhem begins, we've had the right amount of time to enjoy the dusty red wash, the archaic/high-tech computer consoles and their LED dials, the orange post-apocalyptic skyline, the detritus of a self-destructed society: all the elements from which the Mark 13 will reassemble itself and wreak its inevitable havoc.
At least, that's how I viewed it and how I managed to enjoy it and be greatly impressed by it.
If anything you might describe as being 'artsy' is a turn-off for you, don't watch it. If lengthy elaborations of characters and their motivations and relationships and inner turmoils etc. (prior to their being gotten at by a rogue drone killing machine) are resoundingly a MUST for you, don't watch it.
Hardware is, for want of a better word, 'artsy'. This alone (regardless of how vague and amorphous a term it is) will scare off many. It is of its era and chooses to explore the cyber-punk/industrial aesthetic to the utmost. This will also polarize. Some here speak of a lack of character development. Perhaps. But in place of that, we get a kickass movie with a beautiful look, a wonderfully grimy feel, and an extremely effective sound(track) (among other things). Lack of character development matters when it matters but when there are other elements at play, doesn't need to be the be all and end all of a film's effectiveness. Those who cling to 'the rules' of movie-making (and who aren't film-makers themselves) have sucked too long at the teat of Mickey Mouse film studies courses and their pompously self-assured pseudo-intellectual creators. Sometimes we should just let a film and its maker 'be' what/who they are, without having to super-impose the rules and regulations we've received from elsewhere.
All that being said, here's why I think Hardware is a great film: it looks beautiful--in this regard, it doesn't hide its dues to Blade Runner; but if you wish to follow the lead of the greats, Blade Runner is a supreme model; I have no trouble with such a homage (copy). It delivers gore aplenty--as such, its a sci-fi/horror rather than straight sci-fi; horror fans should rejoice. The special effects are very good-- the director knows his limitations; he shows just about as much as he can without pushing it; the drab junk-techno design choice helps enormously in this regard. It's well-paced--everyone will disagree with me here; it lays down the beginnings of its minimal plot and sets out to share its aesthetic; it does this, I believe, at just the right pace; halfway through the film, when the mayhem begins, we've had the right amount of time to enjoy the dusty red wash, the archaic/high-tech computer consoles and their LED dials, the orange post-apocalyptic skyline, the detritus of a self-destructed society: all the elements from which the Mark 13 will reassemble itself and wreak its inevitable havoc.
At least, that's how I viewed it and how I managed to enjoy it and be greatly impressed by it.
If anything you might describe as being 'artsy' is a turn-off for you, don't watch it. If lengthy elaborations of characters and their motivations and relationships and inner turmoils etc. (prior to their being gotten at by a rogue drone killing machine) are resoundingly a MUST for you, don't watch it.
I am still sat in my chair muttering in disbelief
BrianBlessedFanClub4 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
I have just finished watching this film with a friend after we set ourselves the challenge of watching every "bad" 80s horror film. We have seen some films which have left us scarred psychologically (for all the wrong reasons). At first we thought this film didn't appear to be that bad - oh how wrong we were.
Many of the other reviews on here have written about how it isn't "pretentious", how it's meant for the "sophisticated film lover". No - this film was designed for the partially lobotomised results of a terrible secret experimentation programme. Even monkeys would cover their eyes with their tails.
Most of the film is gibberish, but some of our favourite bits were: (*SPOILERS*) 1- The robot appears to hide and then attack comically - it gets tied up in a bed-sheet, hides behind a blind, dances behind a TV, and generally flails about like a robotic tart
2-How can people not know where each other are in a room the size of a garden shed?! The "artist" tells the fat sex offender that the robot is "in there" - surely it must have been 3 feet away doing we know not what!
3-The fat sex offender - truly grim. The line about popcorn made me flinch.
4-The robot can barely climb stairs and its vulnerabilities include showers, baseball bats and even at one point what appears to be a whisk of some description. Yet it can survive a fall from 100ft and still come back in comedy style.
5-My personal favourite, the Asian lady who is banging on her ceiling about the noise, then suddenly live in the building opposite!!!!!! She must be a time-lord.
Overall 1/10 - and this is kind!
Many of the other reviews on here have written about how it isn't "pretentious", how it's meant for the "sophisticated film lover". No - this film was designed for the partially lobotomised results of a terrible secret experimentation programme. Even monkeys would cover their eyes with their tails.
Most of the film is gibberish, but some of our favourite bits were: (*SPOILERS*) 1- The robot appears to hide and then attack comically - it gets tied up in a bed-sheet, hides behind a blind, dances behind a TV, and generally flails about like a robotic tart
2-How can people not know where each other are in a room the size of a garden shed?! The "artist" tells the fat sex offender that the robot is "in there" - surely it must have been 3 feet away doing we know not what!
3-The fat sex offender - truly grim. The line about popcorn made me flinch.
4-The robot can barely climb stairs and its vulnerabilities include showers, baseball bats and even at one point what appears to be a whisk of some description. Yet it can survive a fall from 100ft and still come back in comedy style.
5-My personal favourite, the Asian lady who is banging on her ceiling about the noise, then suddenly live in the building opposite!!!!!! She must be a time-lord.
Overall 1/10 - and this is kind!
Still one of my favorites.
Skin70-310 January 2001
This movie is one of the best looks at a bleak future that I've seen. It's effective in every way, except one. I've never been a big fan of self-regeneration, and it seems like a less-than-subtle way to bring our "killer robot" into play. If you look past that, and write it off as Richard Stanley's only conceivable way to bring the robot into existence, you have a masterpiece of modern sci-fi. From the sick, obsessive neighbor, to the radio-active environment, to the incredible pieces of "cyber-punk" music (PIL, Ministry), to the casual look at substance abuse,...this movie will leave you dreading what the future might hold for the computer obsessed masses. It's not a movie about a killer robot, it's a movie about the future that we are making for ourselves.
Future kill...
fmarkland3217 March 2008
Dylan McDermott stars as a scavenger who gives his girlfriend a robot head, his girlfriend an artist who smokes Mary Jane (Stacey Travis) and paints an American flag on such, doesn't realize that said robot has been built to destroy humans and so said robot reassembles itself and McDermott and Travis must stop it. Hardware is a movie that is often in its own way, quite brilliant. The movie has a fascination with the atmosphere and right away we want to learn more on how the future got to be like this. Also the reason for why the robot is made is never explained. The movie does works in the vein of Blade Runner, in that the less known about the film, the stronger it is. It's a movie that invites you to ponder the details, and with many experimental camera angles, suspenseful stalking sequences, well sketched characters and energetically staged action, Hardware works as one of the better in the genre of robots run amok. Indeed it's more in the science fiction approach with mood,atmosphere and style, and in my opinion is how they should've done Lawnmower Man and Johnny Mnemonic. Indeed director Richard Stanley would've made those movies great. Iggy Pop provides excellent comic relief with the opening and closing sequences.
* * * out of 4-(Good)
* * * out of 4-(Good)
Slow - inevitable - don't bother
MarcMdA25 March 2001
I rented the video of Hardware after seeing it in the video stores frequently and wondering what it was all about.
The reference in the tagline to "it exterminates" suggested that it worked off the Terminator concept. However - it was either low budget or uninspired writing, because after the initial (slow) set-up it ends up in an inevitable way with few interesting turns - and really, quite a silly resolution.
[It may not have helped that the version I saw on video (legitimate copy but weather-worn) seemed to contain the colours red and blue - but virtually nothing else. (I hope that isn't the case in the proper film or better videos).]
The reference in the tagline to "it exterminates" suggested that it worked off the Terminator concept. However - it was either low budget or uninspired writing, because after the initial (slow) set-up it ends up in an inevitable way with few interesting turns - and really, quite a silly resolution.
[It may not have helped that the version I saw on video (legitimate copy but weather-worn) seemed to contain the colours red and blue - but virtually nothing else. (I hope that isn't the case in the proper film or better videos).]
Hollywood did not destroy this movie
jwolter18 September 2000
I saw this movie in the theater the week it opened way back when. It was a very, very late showing, and there were approximately five other people in the theater. Two walked out during the film. As the film credits rolled, the two women sitting next to us said, "My god! That was the worst film I have ever seen!" My only thoughts were, "They have not seen Starcrash!"
Both my friend and I loved Hardware. I introduced my SO to it this weekend, and he loved it. I think what I like about it is that it's a small movie that manages to execute its space perfectly. The universe of Hardware is dark, dirty, claustrophobic (without being small). The narrative is pure dystopia, which fits very well with the droid gone wild theme. The droid is so unrelenting, as is the dreariness of existence in this post apocalyptic space. I like how tight the movie is. I also like how clean the narrative is. There isn't any extraneous fluff.
I think this movie will appeal to the slightly more sophisticated film lover. It doesn't have big movie pretensions. Hollywood did not destroy this movie. The symbolism is far more subtle than in big productions. The pacing is also different. I loved the slow buildup.
This movie worked, but it's not an easy movie. If you're willing to work a little with a movie that doesn't have the big movie facade of Terminator II or Independence Day, and you enjoy dystopic science fiction, I think you will like this one.
Both my friend and I loved Hardware. I introduced my SO to it this weekend, and he loved it. I think what I like about it is that it's a small movie that manages to execute its space perfectly. The universe of Hardware is dark, dirty, claustrophobic (without being small). The narrative is pure dystopia, which fits very well with the droid gone wild theme. The droid is so unrelenting, as is the dreariness of existence in this post apocalyptic space. I like how tight the movie is. I also like how clean the narrative is. There isn't any extraneous fluff.
I think this movie will appeal to the slightly more sophisticated film lover. It doesn't have big movie pretensions. Hollywood did not destroy this movie. The symbolism is far more subtle than in big productions. The pacing is also different. I loved the slow buildup.
This movie worked, but it's not an easy movie. If you're willing to work a little with a movie that doesn't have the big movie facade of Terminator II or Independence Day, and you enjoy dystopic science fiction, I think you will like this one.
Bleak View of the Future of Mankind
claudio_carvalho19 June 2014
In a post-apocalyptic future, Earth is taken by radioactivity and the ozone depletion causes high temperatures. A nomad (Carl McCoy) wanders in the desert and finds an android head and hand. He brings the parts to sell to the seller Alvy (Mark Northover), but the soldier Moses "Mo" (Dylan McDermott) buys the head to give to his girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis), who is an artist that makes sculptures.
Mo and his friend Shades (John Lynch) go to New York to meet Jill and she uses the head in her sculpture. Meanwhile Alvy researches the origin of the head and discovers that it belongs to the dangerous project Mark 13 that was provided with artificial intelligence and programmed to rebuild itself, but deactivated by the authorities because of its vulnerability to the rain. He summons Mo to tell his discovery and Jill is left alone with the lethal machine that is rebuilding itself with the parts she uses in her sculptures.
"Hardware" is a sci-fi B-movie with a bleak view of the future of mankind. The story is very simple and the special effects and robots are great for a movie from the 90's. Unfortunately the cinematography is too dark, but the music score is magnificent. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "Hardware - O Destruidor do Futuro" ("Hardware – The Destroyer of the Future")
Mo and his friend Shades (John Lynch) go to New York to meet Jill and she uses the head in her sculpture. Meanwhile Alvy researches the origin of the head and discovers that it belongs to the dangerous project Mark 13 that was provided with artificial intelligence and programmed to rebuild itself, but deactivated by the authorities because of its vulnerability to the rain. He summons Mo to tell his discovery and Jill is left alone with the lethal machine that is rebuilding itself with the parts she uses in her sculptures.
"Hardware" is a sci-fi B-movie with a bleak view of the future of mankind. The story is very simple and the special effects and robots are great for a movie from the 90's. Unfortunately the cinematography is too dark, but the music score is magnificent. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "Hardware - O Destruidor do Futuro" ("Hardware – The Destroyer of the Future")
On my top 10 worst movie list...
schin268 August 2001
This movie was horrible! I can't believe I wasted $6? (whatever the full price of a movie was back in 1990) on this. At least half the people in the theater walked out (one of the only times I ever seen that happen.)
There was no plot (although I wasn't expecting any), but the special effects sucked and there was no suspense or horror or even decent action scenes. The only plus for me was the soundtrack from Ministry.
What can you expect from a movie who only recommendation came from "Freddie Krueger" of Nightmare fame?
Just for comparison, a few other movies on my 'worst list' are The Crow Part 2, Mr. Saturday Night (maybe funny if you're 60+ years old) and Battlefield Earth (which was bad, but not as bad as Hardware.)
There was no plot (although I wasn't expecting any), but the special effects sucked and there was no suspense or horror or even decent action scenes. The only plus for me was the soundtrack from Ministry.
What can you expect from a movie who only recommendation came from "Freddie Krueger" of Nightmare fame?
Just for comparison, a few other movies on my 'worst list' are The Crow Part 2, Mr. Saturday Night (maybe funny if you're 60+ years old) and Battlefield Earth (which was bad, but not as bad as Hardware.)
Overly dreary, yet stylish and entertaining, post-nuke sci-fi thriller.
capkronos9 July 2003
Post-nuke Earth is a sandy, endlessly hot, orange-tinted wasteland overcome by pollution and radiation. A desert scavenger finds parts of a "M.A.R.K. 13" android partially buried in the sand, sells them to nomad Mo (Dylan McDermott), who gives them to his red-headed artist girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis). The robot regenerates itself into a heat-sensing, merciless killing machine equipped with a buzz saw, drill, claws and machine gun that help it live by it's motto, "No flesh shall be spared."
This sci-fi thriller is thinly plotted, unpleasant and grim, but is professionally put together and slick, with one of Simon Boswell's best scores and brilliantly bleak photography by Steve Chivers. Excellent make-up and robotics from Image Animation. Some of the violence was cut to avoid an X rating in theaters, but have been restored on video (which still seems no worse than an R).
Based on the comic book "SHOK!" by Steve McManus and Kevin O'Neill (The two men had to sue to get credit, by the way), and filmed on location in London and Morocco. Iggy Pop and Motorhead's Lemmy, who both contributed to the soundtrack, have cameos.
This sci-fi thriller is thinly plotted, unpleasant and grim, but is professionally put together and slick, with one of Simon Boswell's best scores and brilliantly bleak photography by Steve Chivers. Excellent make-up and robotics from Image Animation. Some of the violence was cut to avoid an X rating in theaters, but have been restored on video (which still seems no worse than an R).
Based on the comic book "SHOK!" by Steve McManus and Kevin O'Neill (The two men had to sue to get credit, by the way), and filmed on location in London and Morocco. Iggy Pop and Motorhead's Lemmy, who both contributed to the soundtrack, have cameos.
So bad it's good... no I take that back it's just bad.
ZachsMind31 October 2000
Warning: Spoilers
There are potential spoilers in this review. However, it's not the plot that is the reason to see this film. The boys at Mystery Science Theater 3000 should have put this movie on their show. It's so terrible it's fun to laugh at, and opens itself up to many opportunities to make wisecracks at the screen.
The story takes place in an uncertain future, where apparently the environmental doomsayers of the world were correct. The Earth is now a planet-wide low property district covered with desert and demilitarized zones. The entire feel of the movie is depressing and moronic. Everyone has pretty much given up on trying to save the planet from human excess and stupidity, and they're just all sort of waiting for the inevitable. However, the world is dying with a whimper instead of a bang, and the horror of human extinction isn't happening fast enough. Ultimately this is a terrible film with an attempt at a social, environmental message. We get a very bleak picture of the future of humanity.
Dylan McDermott (known more recently for his work in the tv show "The Practice") plays Moses Baxter. Known as Mo to his few friends, he used to work for 'the Corp' but we never really find out what that is. He buys some scrap metal from a desert scavenger and brings it to his estranged girlfriend for a Christmas present.
Mo's girl Jill is played surprisingly well by Stacey Travis, and she is perhaps the only saving grace of this film. One of the things I like about this film is that the female lead can take care of herself and doesn't need any saving by testosterone-filled males. Despite her self-reliance, the men in the movie come charging in at one point thinking they're the cavalry anyway, and this builds up what is for me one of the most laughable and entertaining moments of the entire movie.
Jill is a resourceful woman who has barricaded herself in what's left of her apartment. It's pretty trashed when we first see her apartment, and it only gets worse. Talented with computers and machines, Jill spends her days smoking government approved "Major Good Vibes" cigarettes, watching disturbing television, listening to Iggy Pop's voice as the deranged radio personality "Angry Bob" and in her spare time she makes depressing artistic sculptures out of scrap metal that she can't sell because nobody cares. Why does she make these scrap metal sculptures? Because if she didn't we wouldn't have a plot.
The other supporting characters include people who use drugs to pass the time, buy metal scrap because it sometimes forwards the plot along, and lusting after Jill because it doesn't forward the plot along. She only has eyes for Mo, and she often asks herself why. We often ask ourselves why too, but we get one gratuitous sex scene out of it.
The people who do die, you pretty much want them to die anyway. So in that, the film holds true to the rules of horror movies, which is rather amusing because this is supposed to be a scifi flick. Visually, the movie's an attempt at industrial surrealism. There's a lot of red filters used for the landscapes, and a lot of darkness is used interspersed with superfluous strobe lights and other strangeness. The majority of the sets look like a badly made haunted house. However, despite the low budget attempts at flashy special effects, it does have some amusing imagery. It also sounds good, with a satisfactory soundtrack and the sound effects are well done.
So anyway, back to what little plot there is. Mo gives Jill this scrap metal as a present and an apology for ignoring her most of the time, and she takes the skull of what they think was some maintenance droid and puts it into one of her disturbing artistic sculptures. She paints the skull like an American flag, which is also pretty funny. It turns out that the metal skull used to be a defected reject robot from some government project called "Mark 13." What a surprise. Mark 13 was designed to kill anything that gives off heat. Unfortunately this film doesn't register on infrared. The rest of the film involves "Mark 13" rebuilding himself and beating up on the actors and the set. It's a shame robotic puppets can't win awards for overacting.
At one point Mo talks about a dream he had about rain, which the robot repeats to Jill near the end to help her figure out how to finally take out the robot. Don't ask me. I couldn't make sense out of it either. It is however a way to conveniently put this poor film out of its own misery.
If you love to laugh at bad movies, this is a great film to pick up at a video rental store, call some friends over, tell them to bring the beer, and you all can laugh at it. A better choice however would be the 1975 movie "A Boy And His Dog" which is a film that insults one's intelligence a bit less than Hardware does, although it's not as visually striking.
The story takes place in an uncertain future, where apparently the environmental doomsayers of the world were correct. The Earth is now a planet-wide low property district covered with desert and demilitarized zones. The entire feel of the movie is depressing and moronic. Everyone has pretty much given up on trying to save the planet from human excess and stupidity, and they're just all sort of waiting for the inevitable. However, the world is dying with a whimper instead of a bang, and the horror of human extinction isn't happening fast enough. Ultimately this is a terrible film with an attempt at a social, environmental message. We get a very bleak picture of the future of humanity.
Dylan McDermott (known more recently for his work in the tv show "The Practice") plays Moses Baxter. Known as Mo to his few friends, he used to work for 'the Corp' but we never really find out what that is. He buys some scrap metal from a desert scavenger and brings it to his estranged girlfriend for a Christmas present.
Mo's girl Jill is played surprisingly well by Stacey Travis, and she is perhaps the only saving grace of this film. One of the things I like about this film is that the female lead can take care of herself and doesn't need any saving by testosterone-filled males. Despite her self-reliance, the men in the movie come charging in at one point thinking they're the cavalry anyway, and this builds up what is for me one of the most laughable and entertaining moments of the entire movie.
Jill is a resourceful woman who has barricaded herself in what's left of her apartment. It's pretty trashed when we first see her apartment, and it only gets worse. Talented with computers and machines, Jill spends her days smoking government approved "Major Good Vibes" cigarettes, watching disturbing television, listening to Iggy Pop's voice as the deranged radio personality "Angry Bob" and in her spare time she makes depressing artistic sculptures out of scrap metal that she can't sell because nobody cares. Why does she make these scrap metal sculptures? Because if she didn't we wouldn't have a plot.
The other supporting characters include people who use drugs to pass the time, buy metal scrap because it sometimes forwards the plot along, and lusting after Jill because it doesn't forward the plot along. She only has eyes for Mo, and she often asks herself why. We often ask ourselves why too, but we get one gratuitous sex scene out of it.
The people who do die, you pretty much want them to die anyway. So in that, the film holds true to the rules of horror movies, which is rather amusing because this is supposed to be a scifi flick. Visually, the movie's an attempt at industrial surrealism. There's a lot of red filters used for the landscapes, and a lot of darkness is used interspersed with superfluous strobe lights and other strangeness. The majority of the sets look like a badly made haunted house. However, despite the low budget attempts at flashy special effects, it does have some amusing imagery. It also sounds good, with a satisfactory soundtrack and the sound effects are well done.
So anyway, back to what little plot there is. Mo gives Jill this scrap metal as a present and an apology for ignoring her most of the time, and she takes the skull of what they think was some maintenance droid and puts it into one of her disturbing artistic sculptures. She paints the skull like an American flag, which is also pretty funny. It turns out that the metal skull used to be a defected reject robot from some government project called "Mark 13." What a surprise. Mark 13 was designed to kill anything that gives off heat. Unfortunately this film doesn't register on infrared. The rest of the film involves "Mark 13" rebuilding himself and beating up on the actors and the set. It's a shame robotic puppets can't win awards for overacting.
At one point Mo talks about a dream he had about rain, which the robot repeats to Jill near the end to help her figure out how to finally take out the robot. Don't ask me. I couldn't make sense out of it either. It is however a way to conveniently put this poor film out of its own misery.
If you love to laugh at bad movies, this is a great film to pick up at a video rental store, call some friends over, tell them to bring the beer, and you all can laugh at it. A better choice however would be the 1975 movie "A Boy And His Dog" which is a film that insults one's intelligence a bit less than Hardware does, although it's not as visually striking.
The Richard Stanley show
jbarnett7625 June 2005
I must admit I am a huge fan of this under-estimated, enigmatic South African director.
Like his magnificent masterpiece, Dust Devil, Hardware deals with similar themes - the desert, the Old Testament, and sexual violence.
I first saw this movie many years ago when still basically a kid before I went to film school and certain sequences have stayed with me forever.
Watching it again in 2005 the movie seems a little dated or rather post-rock video in places, but when it was made in 1990, this was all cutting-edge stuff. I am not giving anything away by saying that the plot is in many ways a re-working of The Terminator or Alien, when Dylan McDermott gives his girlfriend Jill (played by Stacey Travis)what he thinks is a load of unusual scrap metal salvaged from the desert. She is an artist and welds these robot parts to a sculpture she is making...
This is an extremely visceral movie, laced with religious iconography (mark-13 often adopts crucifixion poses and in the shower scene at the end, appears to be in a prayer position) and boosted by an extremely eclectic and unusual cast. Motorhead singer Lemmy crops up playing a sort of ferryman, Iggy Pop plays DJ Angry Bob, and John Lynch is excellent as my favourite character from this film, Shades.
The narrative is essentially straight-forward but what makes this movie different and memorable is Stanley's vision. The mise-en-scene is bleached red (post-appocalypse), the use of montage is often extremely effective and nightmarish and I was frequently reminded when watching it of Renaissence paintings, just in glimpses here and there (hell, maybe that's just me..!) There is also some American comment in this movie; mark-13 is adorned with a stars-and-stripes, and the deadly toxin it employs is described as 'smelling like apple pie'. This of course is akin to Dust Devil, where the demon is simply called 'Texas' by Wendy.
So, to conclude, if you haven't seen this movie or heard of this director before I urge you to seek him out. Anyone with a love for avant-garde and challenging cinema (like me) should have heard of this guy (proper auteur by the way) and his thematically-consistent visions.
This is still a fine film but probably hasn't aged as well as it might have done - it's strength is that it is far more complex than it first appears to be.
Like his magnificent masterpiece, Dust Devil, Hardware deals with similar themes - the desert, the Old Testament, and sexual violence.
I first saw this movie many years ago when still basically a kid before I went to film school and certain sequences have stayed with me forever.
Watching it again in 2005 the movie seems a little dated or rather post-rock video in places, but when it was made in 1990, this was all cutting-edge stuff. I am not giving anything away by saying that the plot is in many ways a re-working of The Terminator or Alien, when Dylan McDermott gives his girlfriend Jill (played by Stacey Travis)what he thinks is a load of unusual scrap metal salvaged from the desert. She is an artist and welds these robot parts to a sculpture she is making...
This is an extremely visceral movie, laced with religious iconography (mark-13 often adopts crucifixion poses and in the shower scene at the end, appears to be in a prayer position) and boosted by an extremely eclectic and unusual cast. Motorhead singer Lemmy crops up playing a sort of ferryman, Iggy Pop plays DJ Angry Bob, and John Lynch is excellent as my favourite character from this film, Shades.
The narrative is essentially straight-forward but what makes this movie different and memorable is Stanley's vision. The mise-en-scene is bleached red (post-appocalypse), the use of montage is often extremely effective and nightmarish and I was frequently reminded when watching it of Renaissence paintings, just in glimpses here and there (hell, maybe that's just me..!) There is also some American comment in this movie; mark-13 is adorned with a stars-and-stripes, and the deadly toxin it employs is described as 'smelling like apple pie'. This of course is akin to Dust Devil, where the demon is simply called 'Texas' by Wendy.
So, to conclude, if you haven't seen this movie or heard of this director before I urge you to seek him out. Anyone with a love for avant-garde and challenging cinema (like me) should have heard of this guy (proper auteur by the way) and his thematically-consistent visions.
This is still a fine film but probably hasn't aged as well as it might have done - it's strength is that it is far more complex than it first appears to be.
Odd, but interesting
NancyBoy14 January 2000
Warning: Spoilers
WARNING: SPOILER
I gave this movie a relatively decent rating for one reason: I saw the film a year ago and Dylan McDermott's death scene still sticks with me. It was the most dramatic in any movie that I have seen in my twenty years of life. 7/10
I gave this movie a relatively decent rating for one reason: I saw the film a year ago and Dylan McDermott's death scene still sticks with me. It was the most dramatic in any movie that I have seen in my twenty years of life. 7/10
The worst movie in the history of the universe
fact275-115 July 2005
Warning: Spoilers
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."
It's a good movie to analyze, but not always great to watch
databeast26 July 2005
First off, let's get my bias out the way, I'm a die-hard fan of this movie, and this review is definitely intended to get the reader to give it a chance.
The film is riddled with industrial (music) culture references and cameos, and if you're into that scene, there's a certain sick thrill about seeing Carl McCoy as the zone trooper, and seeing footage of proto-industrial performance artist Monte Cazazza in this. The general tone and ambiance of the whole piece of wonderfully clichéd cyberpunk.
And that's really the interesting thing about this film. While there are a plethora of terrible sci-fi slasher flicks out there desperately claiming the 'cyberpunk' moniker, here is a film that claims to be nothing more than a sci-fi slasher flick, and manages to be somewhat of a pulp-cyberpunk classic instead.
The whole movie is a mood piece, designed more for its ambiance and the feel of its world, than particularly flashy action sequences or on-screen 'wow' factor. It's meant to be a genre movie, but it manages to feel like a 'serious' film under the influence of some heavy drugs. Not a bad thing really, but your tastes may disagree. Personally I've always liked that sunset-filtered-through pollution look that Bladerunner was infamous for, and hardware utilizes the same rather well.
Genre movie it may be, but it shows far less cheese coating and terrible acting than any of the current glut of genre movies being produced for the Sci-Fi channel. In fact the whole movie feels more like a good pulpy cyberpunk novella than a genre movie by far. Calling the movie 'mood music for rivetheads' isn't really an insult to it.
The film is riddled with industrial (music) culture references and cameos, and if you're into that scene, there's a certain sick thrill about seeing Carl McCoy as the zone trooper, and seeing footage of proto-industrial performance artist Monte Cazazza in this. The general tone and ambiance of the whole piece of wonderfully clichéd cyberpunk.
And that's really the interesting thing about this film. While there are a plethora of terrible sci-fi slasher flicks out there desperately claiming the 'cyberpunk' moniker, here is a film that claims to be nothing more than a sci-fi slasher flick, and manages to be somewhat of a pulp-cyberpunk classic instead.
The whole movie is a mood piece, designed more for its ambiance and the feel of its world, than particularly flashy action sequences or on-screen 'wow' factor. It's meant to be a genre movie, but it manages to feel like a 'serious' film under the influence of some heavy drugs. Not a bad thing really, but your tastes may disagree. Personally I've always liked that sunset-filtered-through pollution look that Bladerunner was infamous for, and hardware utilizes the same rather well.
Genre movie it may be, but it shows far less cheese coating and terrible acting than any of the current glut of genre movies being produced for the Sci-Fi channel. In fact the whole movie feels more like a good pulpy cyberpunk novella than a genre movie by far. Calling the movie 'mood music for rivetheads' isn't really an insult to it.
Pretty good entertainment
scott-sw26 March 2011
Hardware was one of those movies that was not only a hybrid of 1980s and 1990's movies, but also a hybrid of Terminator and Alien. Although on the B movie level, it was still engrossing entertainment. It is a post-apocalyptic future in which nuclear wars have resulted in radiation fallout, bad weather, and a fatalistic future. Most people are on welfare trying to hock their goods or make a decent trade. About the only ones with jobs are the military, or the industrial military complex. We begin as a lone renegade finds some scrap metal of a robot in the middle of the desert. He sells it to Mo (Dylan McDermot in one of his earliest roles) who wants to give it to his artist girlfriend, Jill (Stacy Travis). The robot turns out to be the Mark XIII, a prototype robot designed to rid the earth of flesh - or humans. It is capable of rebuilding itself and tapping into a power source. It does, and starts reeking havoc in Jill's apartment. Once Mo finds out what it truly is, he hurries back to rescue her. First, the good. The idea is fairly well presented and develops some character (although not a lot). It also lightly delves into philosophy of society, and religion - albeit lightly. This exploration is done through dialog that sounds more natural than forced. Probably the best thing going for Hardware is a great concept and design of a monster machine. It also provides a few scares, as well as some tension. Next, the bad. Some of the story is not well-executed, especially in the last third of the movie when all hell breaks loose. This is apparent mostly in the obnoxiously loud soundtrack. Moreover, the direction becomes disjointed, confusing us with quick, jittery camera shots, and uneven story development. The ugly is in the gore and violence. Not to say this is bad, because gore lovers will revel in the special effects of the different ways this machine can dismember its humans victims. Like the music, the effects are a little dated, but this level did give the MPAA some consideration for the infant NC-17 rating. No, it's not classic Sci-Fi, nor masterful cinema. Still, it manages to entertain to a certain level - considering it was made 21 years ago.
More cyberjunk than cyberpunk.
BA_Harrison13 September 2011
In a post-apocalyptic future, drifter Moses (Dylan McDermott) returns 'home' bearing a gift for his girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis): scrap robot parts, collected from the wastelands, for use in her art. Unfortunately, these components turn out to be from a Mark 13, a prototype military killing machine capable of self repair; as Jill sleeps, the robot rebuilds itself using material from her sculptures and goes on a murderous rampage.
"A highly original, mind-melding, Cyberpunk, horror/sci-fi cult classic"—so claims the copy on the back of my Hardware DVD; whoever wrote that clearly wasn't aware of the legal action taken by comic strip duo Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill after they discovered that their 2000AD story 'Shok!' had been turned into a film without their knowledge (the film now boasts a rather pathetic admission of guilt after the end credits). In addition to this blatant case of plagiarism, Hardware's writer/director Richard Stanley is also guilty of plundering numerous sci-fi classics, most notably Bladerunner and The Terminator, for a variety of visual tidbits. So much for 'highly original'...
As far as 'mind-melding, Cyberpunk' is concerned, the film offers a lumbering piece of clumsily animated hardware that flails about wildly like a demented Johnny 5, a lot of brightly coloured lights, strobes and filters, and a few dodgy computer generated Mandelbrot fractals of the sort you can create in Photoshop in five minutes with the right plug-in, whilst shoe-horning in some ill-conceived religious subtext and weak social commentary—hardly visionary stuff that is going to radically alter my perception of the world.
Although a semi-decent score by Simon Boswell, a cool nightmarish sequence in which Mark 13 acts like a demented metallic DJ at a rave, and a couple of impressively gory death scenes (best being the gruesome bisection of one poor sod by a hydraulic door) provide a little fun and prevent the film from being a complete waste of time, I still find this film extremely disappointing as a whole and am totally mystified by the cult following it seems to have garnered.
"A highly original, mind-melding, Cyberpunk, horror/sci-fi cult classic"—so claims the copy on the back of my Hardware DVD; whoever wrote that clearly wasn't aware of the legal action taken by comic strip duo Steve MacManus and Kevin O'Neill after they discovered that their 2000AD story 'Shok!' had been turned into a film without their knowledge (the film now boasts a rather pathetic admission of guilt after the end credits). In addition to this blatant case of plagiarism, Hardware's writer/director Richard Stanley is also guilty of plundering numerous sci-fi classics, most notably Bladerunner and The Terminator, for a variety of visual tidbits. So much for 'highly original'...
As far as 'mind-melding, Cyberpunk' is concerned, the film offers a lumbering piece of clumsily animated hardware that flails about wildly like a demented Johnny 5, a lot of brightly coloured lights, strobes and filters, and a few dodgy computer generated Mandelbrot fractals of the sort you can create in Photoshop in five minutes with the right plug-in, whilst shoe-horning in some ill-conceived religious subtext and weak social commentary—hardly visionary stuff that is going to radically alter my perception of the world.
Although a semi-decent score by Simon Boswell, a cool nightmarish sequence in which Mark 13 acts like a demented metallic DJ at a rave, and a couple of impressively gory death scenes (best being the gruesome bisection of one poor sod by a hydraulic door) provide a little fun and prevent the film from being a complete waste of time, I still find this film extremely disappointing as a whole and am totally mystified by the cult following it seems to have garnered.
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