R.O.T.O.R.


release year: 1989
genre: bad sci-fi/action/drama
viewing setting: home VHS, 12/25/08

synopsis: A robot police officer is rushed into production and accidentally activated, and he spends all his time chasing a passenger in a car that was speeding slightly.

impressions: Don't be fooled by that brief synopsis above - this is one of the worst movies ever made. It's so bad that it's good, and has become something of a cult classic. I think the filmakers meant well...they had a great idea that went something like "what if we took the cool concept of Robocop and added the ruthlessness of The Terminator ?" Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for those of us entertained by such things) they didn't have the money or the actors to pull it off like they probably envisioned. As you might expect, things happen for no reason and characters' actions are inconsistent. Sometimes the killer robot moves fast, other times he's as slow as a zombie from a Romero zombie film. One character who should know better (since she helped design the robot) takes it on in hand-to-hand combat, which is a bad idea despite the fact that she's a bodybuilder. We also get some of the worst lines ever, which I won't repeat here. Okay, maybe one (see below.) This is the kind of movie where a random woman who's being terrorized suddenly uses karate to beat a mugger...and that's completely unrelated to anything else in the movie. Another example: the robot has "Sensory Recall" which allows him to view past events that he wasn't there for and that weren't recorded/filmed in any way. Eyaaargh. This stuff is not to be taken seriously.

something this movie has that no other movie has: A gigantic musclebound bodybuilder getting beaten and then walked on by the victor.

acting: Richard Gesswein is the main guy...a scientist...no wait, a cowboy...well, he's also a cop. I think this guy's supposed to be all things to all people. He even does the voiceovers during the movie. Margaret Trigg is the woman who somehow becomes R.O.T.O.R.'s target even though she technically committed no crime (in retrospect, the movie would have been more entertaining if R.O.T.O.R. had quickly killed her and then found its way into the gang-infested inner city, which was really its purpose in the first place.) Jayne Smith is the buff scientist woman who doesn't appear until the final one-third of the movie.

quotable line: "You know that this is an unofficial debriefing. Officially not an arrest questioning. Then please state so for the record, Doctor! Unofficially."

another, far more detailed review: Jabootu's Bad Movie Dimension

freakish incident during viewing: the VCR broke...right after R.O.T.O.R. walked all over the bodybuilder, the VCR wouldn't play the movie anymore, and pushing fast-forward or rewind caused it to power off, repeatedly

final word: This is some of the most entertaining crap you can watch.

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