Android (1982)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Best movie ever!

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Here is one of those movies that despite its best efforts fails to really captivate the viewers.The ideas are quite solid. Dr. Daniel and his quirky assistant, illegally working on a new type of android on a space station. We find out quickly that the assistant, Max, is an android himself, who is trying to find out what it is like to be human. Unfortunately he gets it all just slightly wrong.When two men, and a woman, escaped prisoners, enter the space station both Max and Dr. Daniel are delighted. Dr. Daniel because he wants to use the woman to complete his latest invention, Max because he's never seen a woman before.Those ideas could have made for quite a good movie, and it certainly has its moments, but I felt left out for some reason. I think the main problem is that there is no character you can really relate to. Max is endearing enough at first, stumbling through human interactions, and being awkward, but I couldn't really relate to his point of view. The two escaped male prisoners are not likable at all. Brie Howard does her best to give some character to the female prisoner, but her lines in the script are just too bland to work with. Klaus Kinski is quite an enjoyable evil scientist of course, and he obviously made the best out of the mediocre lines he was given. Unfortunately a bad guy only really works when there's actual good guys around. It doesn't really work when there is no one to sympathize with, no one to connect to.This is an understandable problem when you centre a movie around android characters. When they act human, you don't see them as convincing androids, when they act like robots, you feel detached from them, and can't relate to them as persons. A classic like Blade runner cleverly works around this, by creating androids that act and feel exactly like humans. It can be done the other way round as well, making them far more computer-like, which makes you fear their cold-hearted logic. This movie tries to do something in between, and unfortunately fails to strike the balance right.This is all too bad, because the movie really had more potential, and I'd love to have seen a movie with the same basic plot, but a better script, and more believable characters. For lack of both, it will be added to the list of films I once saw, but don't need to watch again.

Here's a movie that turns an old Roger Corman trick, recycling sets for one low-budget movie after hours to make an even lower-budget movie, often one with more of a 'personal' touch. The victim here is Corman's Star Wars/Seven Samurai hybrid, "Battle Beyond the Stars," which was seriously el cheapo to begin with. "Android" was co-written by its star (and producer's son?) Don Opper, who plays an android in the throes of sexual awakening on a space station manned by Klaus Kinski in a blue sweater; he looks like he just popped by on a morning walk to the store. Some murderous 'anticorporate terrorists' happen on board, scheme a while, complications ensue. Some might find this too slight or too static, but I am impressed with how well it moves considering the economy, and actually I find its modestly quirky tone just about perfectly realized. It is one of those movies that looks like it was scribbled on the back of a high-school notebook, like The Abyss which is blows away effortlessly, or Phantasm which it can keep company with. It almost plays out as a wish-fulfillment fantasy of its geeky star; who ever gets a chance to play around on this scale? Only a lucky few, and we should cherish it when it happens.

I love eighties films, and I love science fiction. This film is a good example of both, but I have to say it was a bit 'darker' than it felt like it should have been.The music is classic analog synthesized fun, and the setting is very cool-looking, typical of any early eighties sci-fi movie but with a certain complexity and detail that makes it seem solid and believable.The acting is absolutely phenomenal. I generally complain a lot about bad, hard-to-believe acting in movies but in this case I have no complaints; there was nothing to distract me from the story. I half-believed that Max was played by a real android (he is credited as "Himself". lol)! The acting was overall believable and appropriately restrained.The story could have used some work... it was a bit slow-moving and somewhat uninteresting, and the resolution wasn't entirely satisfying due to certain characters who were insufficiently developed. Also I felt that there should have been some slight comic relief, and I think the drama of the situations was not emphasized enough. But, to the story's credit, it did have a couple of nice twists and I think I like the ending.Overall I think it was worth seeing: much better than most of the junk that comes on at 2 AM!

The first time I saw this movie on television, I was stunned that any Director would put his/her name on the credits for, and even admit having directed, such an incredibly poor film. The second time I saw this movie on television, I had to change the channel to avoid the odeur de ordures putréfiées.I agree with Jason Atwood : this is wonderful fodder for Mystery Science Theater 3000. Hoping to see Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo all over this one!Le Grecque