Automatic

Oliver Grunner stars in this very entertaining movie about cyborgs and the effect they have on a futuristic society. John Glover stars as Goddard Marx, the president of RobGen; an artificial human production company. This IS the future and these things or androids are as common as automobiles and are used for factory labor, security, entertainment and even as sexual surrogate partners. Everything is fine at the company until a RobGen executive tries to savagely rape a female secretary named Nora Rochester (well played by Daphne Ashbrook). Oliver (he plays multiple roles very well in this movie!) interrupts the attack (he IS programmed to protect life, after all!) and in the course of the encounter accidently kills the out of control corporate man. What follows after this is a mad struggle for survival and escape as Goddard Marx calls in a special human merc unit led by a Major West (well played by Jeff Kober). There is lots of good special effects action as well as a few very interesting surprises in the plot. Grunner is always at his acting best and carries the role of J269, etc. well. Add this one to your collections of movies on the science fiction shelf! Good movie!!

AUTOMATIC is a low-rent sci-fi B-movie starring French martial artist Olivier Gruner, a guy who had all the acting ability of a hunk of cheese but who knew how to kick when it came to the fight scenes. This is an incredibly cheap-looking movie that sees Gruner playing an android who rebels against his corrupt creators and is forced to defend himself from a hit squad.

The entire film takes place in a dimly-lit building with the characters prowling the corridors and engaging in some low-rent fight scenes. The choreography is poor and the script worse, and it doesn't help that the cast is filled with actors giving laissez-faire performances which hardly fill the viewer with confidence.

Throughout AUTOMATIC, the scriptwriter rips off many other, better movies. The single-location stalking sequences are reminiscent of the basic premise of DIE HARD, while of course THE TERMINATOR hangs over everything with the presence of androids (although the movie doesn't feature much of the cool robotic effect stuff you saw generally in '90s B-movies). There are also lots of scenes inspired by ALIENS. Inevitably, this movie can't hold a candle to any of those classics and is a completely forgettable piece of popcorn fare.

Basic Die Hard rip-off action flick with touches of wit and even satire. John Glover as the jolly corporate mogul is great. (Particularly in the first five minutes!) Jeff Kober, as always, has a lot of fun with a small role. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would!

For a low-budget action/sci-fi film, this is a really good movie. Of course the acting is rather crappy as you'd expect from Gruener, but the action is good and so are the sci-fi elements. I have seen a few of Gruener's movies and this one is by far his best in my opinion. One thing that really impressed me in this movie were the guns that were used. They had lcd type screens on them that allowed the holder to see around corners - a few years after this movie was made the military looked into actually using a similar system on their rifles.

I highly recommend any fan of action/sci-fi movies to rent this one as it is actually better than some of the big-budget action movies these days.

This film is one of those that has you reaching for the brightness button on the remote. I'm sure that in some circumstances the Director must have been told to save on the electricity bill. Lots of sympathy for the decommisioned "'Tics" which occur during the film, but not much else worthy of note. As stated, the predictability of the film is noteworthy in itself - the fight scences, the heroine's dress, the crawl through the air vent, the finale - don't go out of your way to watch this one. See it once perhaps, and then log it away in the deep recesses.......