The only way to enjoy this movie is as an unintentional comedy, or as a drinking game. It concerns itself with the hopelessly nonthreatening gadgets of a madman, some of which turn out to be better actors than the stars, and the plot & script clearly never had anyones attention.
None of the mechanical threats are designed to look even remotely like they could accomplish the things the plot asks of them, without a twenty-nerd-crew hovering just out of view. The feeble 'bugs' are so poorly designed, they can't even be shown moving an inch on a smooth surface; so it's bewildering that the plot has them climbing walls, crawling up peoples bodies, mounting construction elevator towers (!) etc. A hostage situation reveals a klunky "household robot" designed to do nothing more complex than... hold a gun! A dangerous, exploding robot (later) has the firepower of, perhaps 4 sparklers. A gun with bullets that pursue their target ends up being less effective than a regular gun, and requires the same dumb, old "guns in movies" rules ("I've been shot at... thank God there's plenty of time to run and jump out of the of bullets way"). Since none of the "terrifying" devices cause anything more than a smirk, the tension wheezes out of the movie shortly after the opening credits.
They really bought into every conceivable New Wave trope; mediocre synth music, mannish-Avedon hair on women. It's hard to believe how terrible movies got in the 80s while their smarmy directors thought they were making something to compete with the old noirs. This may be the worst movie ever made, or at least the most incompetent one. A "high-speed" robot pursuit in traffic was obviously shot at tops, 5 miles an hour. In he early part of the movie, you can see a boxy, yellow robot on treads that was clearly stolen as the concept for WALL-E.
None of the mechanical threats are designed to look even remotely like they could accomplish the things the plot asks of them, without a twenty-nerd-crew hovering just out of view. The feeble 'bugs' are so poorly designed, they can't even be shown moving an inch on a smooth surface; so it's bewildering that the plot has them climbing walls, crawling up peoples bodies, mounting construction elevator towers (!) etc. A hostage situation reveals a klunky "household robot" designed to do nothing more complex than... hold a gun! A dangerous, exploding robot (later) has the firepower of, perhaps 4 sparklers. A gun with bullets that pursue their target ends up being less effective than a regular gun, and requires the same dumb, old "guns in movies" rules ("I've been shot at... thank God there's plenty of time to run and jump out of the of bullets way"). Since none of the "terrifying" devices cause anything more than a smirk, the tension wheezes out of the movie shortly after the opening credits.
They really bought into every conceivable New Wave trope; mediocre synth music, mannish-Avedon hair on women. It's hard to believe how terrible movies got in the 80s while their smarmy directors thought they were making something to compete with the old noirs. This may be the worst movie ever made, or at least the most incompetent one. A "high-speed" robot pursuit in traffic was obviously shot at tops, 5 miles an hour. In he early part of the movie, you can see a boxy, yellow robot on treads that was clearly stolen as the concept for WALL-E.