Android Apocalypse (2006)

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Best approached with low expectations.The actress playing Bairstow's character's wife was so wooden, when we met her I had trouble determining if she was meant to be a human being or some kind of android concubine. I wish she had been the latter, as that would have made his hostility to androids actually interesting. But this is not the sort of movie in which a flawed, believable, possibly self-loathing character confronts his inner demons, and in doing so illuminates some facet of the human condition for us.This is about a mixed ensemble of fair to mediocre actors doing their best to stumble through an awful script, delivering their clunky lines against a backdrop that is at once expensive-looking and yet full of inconsistencies. There is a key action sequence where androids saddle up in shiny new Jeep Renegades from the 1990s to battle each other (and some knife-shooting, levitating drone robots)in a hectic car chase. The use of lighting is "hey look we can do THIS effect too!" more than it is genuinely atmospheric. Overall look is one of daytime television at its worst.Meanwhile, a Nazi-themed evil genius villain stalks around his neon green illuminated lair, wearing his Count Dracula coat, and shooting the camera a series of laughable looks to make sure we get that he's bad and he's almost ready to hatch his evil plans.I felt the central relationship between Scott Bairstow's tough guy and Joseph Lawrence's android developing his own humanity was well played, and was pretty much the only good thing about this film. I wish those two gentlemen well in their future endeavours, hopefully they will leave this sort of thing well behind them.

I think this had an interesting plot idea, kind of a mash-up of "The Defiant Ones" and "Terminator", but it had a lot of problems.First, the action was ridiculously slow. The CGI was cheap. The acting was horrible and the writing made not a lick of sense.The notion is that some kind of disaster has devastated the Earth, and the few humans live in domed cities where the androids do all the work. Except the Androids are slowly taking over, and a human is hooked up to an android Most inconstant part of the film, how the androids are portrayed. Some are pretty normal, others are badly channeling Brent Spiner from Star Trek:The Next Generation. None of them are terribly interesting.

Recap: A (mad?) scientist that apparently works to construct androids to save mankind in a post apocalypse world secretly turns himself into one. And secretly he intends to construct more advanced androids and overthrow the human reign on Earth. However, one android develops feelings and conscience and with the help of one human that happens to find himself in the crossfire the challenge the scientist and his army.Comments: I had some hope for this, but got disappointed. This was too simple. In essence, it was a row of fistfights, nothing more, nothing less. The story and characters were thin and shallow and when the movie pretty soon became repetitive it also became boring. Once there it never redeemed itself and I pretty much shut down. Like an android.4/10

Not a Terminator "rip off," but a story that borrows slightly from James Cameron's human vs. machine battle imagery. The film also evokes THX 1138 for some of its prison guard aesthetic and models its CGI drilling-machines-gone-bad directly on the Matrix Sentinels.Joseph Lawrence's DeeCee android character is a true highlight, and much of the film's first quarter suggests a well-imagined and entertaining story complete with social commentary on the hubris of humanity, android labor politics, the darker side of technology, and environmental irresponsibility.The final third of the film, however, becomes hijacked by some George Lucas logic of rushing to tell the rest of the story without regard for thematic consistency or much concern for the story and characters themselves.Despite the "phantom menace" of the end, I appreciate the filmmakers and actors for the inventive, entertaining narrative. That said, the studio responsible for the severely limited budget should be reprimanded and folks at SciFi Channel should be ashamed of themselves for these kinds of oversights.It's hard to imagine that Gene Roddenberry and Isaac Asimov were once on the cable channel's advisory board.