A.P.E.X.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

In the year 2073,Nicholas Sinclair (Richard Keats) is a scientist working at a time travelling research facility.He has a wife,the beautiful Natasha (Lisa Ann Russell) and works under the command of Dr Elgin (David Jean Thomas).One day,they send a probe 100 years in to the past and completely change the course of history.While attempting to sort out the peoblem,Sinclair finds himself convulted to a present where he finds himself a member of an elite squadron of soldiers,including pent-up muscle man Shepherd (Mitchell Cox),volatile macho man Taylor (Marcus Aurelis) and reserved background man Rasheed (Adam Lawson),not to mention Natasha,who in the present he could remember was his sweet,humble wife but who here is a 'hardened combat soldier',battling an army of robots who can't shoot straight.Sinclair must survive in this hostile environment long enough to find a way back to the present he remembers and stop the accident from ever happening.

The plot is as blatant a rip off of T2 as you could hope to find without the producers being sued for copyright theft,right down to the grey robots causing lots of death and destruction.Said robots are actually really cool,though rather clunky in both their appearance and movement,cruelly exposing the production values of a film that must have had a pretty high budget for a film of it's made-for-video magnitude.

They're not the only problems the film must contend with,however.It must also reckon with a dodgy,confused storyline that never seems to move from one sequence to the next with much in the way of coherence and one or two characters who are just that little bit too contrived in the mould in which they were sculpted to be taken that seriously.There is,however,some good,involving acting on display,not to mention some enjoyable action and one inventive sequence involving a music CD being inserted in to one of the robots when it really shouldn't.You didn't get a scene like that in T2,did you?

Speaking of which,both films are enjoyable enough on their own seperate levels.It's just,I dunno.T2 is Alton Towers,this is the mop fair.Y' know what I'm sayin'?***

In the year 2072, a top secret, military-funded experiment dedicated to exploring time sends an APEX (Advanced Prototype Explorer) robot 100 years back in time. Technician Nicholas Sinclair is accidentally thrown back in time after the robot self-destructs. When he returns to the future, he finds himself in a timeline alien to him where mankind is fighting an army of APEX robot soldiers as well as a killer virus caused by time travel.

At first glance, this direct-to-video clone of The Terminator is clearly a B-grade low budget effort, as evidenced by cheap special effects (although the robots are very convincing). However, the film has something which sets it apart from the rest of the killer robot films around – a dose of imagination. The time-travel plot is very well conducted & plausible, although there is a plot hole – where are the robots coming from? With this in mind, the story is well written. The acting is extremely effective, with the actors giving a fair go as far as performances are concerned. Director Roth, known for his slick B-grade action films, conducts the film with a flair for realistic action scenarios.

Grade: B

Review by M. K. Geist.

An interesting premise, where scientists send time-traveling robots to do research with the caveat that they must not leave any traces of their presence in the past, including witnesses. An accident involving the elimination of said witnesses causes a paradox where one of the scientists in charge of the time-travel experiment finds himself in a parallel post-apocalyptic world where soldiers constantly battle a seemingly never-ending supply of time-traveling robots. The low budget shows and the tactics employed to eliminate the robots (gunfire at close quarters for the most part) seem silly, but the movie's an entertaining weekend time-filler.

I Bought APEX for three Reasons 1)It was Sci fi 2)It was Cheap 3)My friend Recommened it to me

And for £4 english quid ($6 american dollars ) i was not disapointed i liked the voice over it gave a good touch and i liked the story ,the marines wasnt much of marines though (mixture of aliens and The Terminator 1 flash back scenes) the costume was ok but the plastic looking rocket launcher thing was dodgy , and i wont mention the extraordinary square stomachs when they get shot . The robots were really dodgy they looked camp and stiff and laughable but they do the job because when you see them all togrther at the end (predator 2)you think damn ! i wouldnt want to be in the marines boots (well i would) i guess it would be better if it was not set in the desert as much instead in a crumbled city at night where its raining ! well done though to Phillip J Roth both he and Albert Pyun are making a lot of films im liking.

Time travel usually goes wrong. I think all machines designed for that purpose are legally required to have something like that written on a sticker on it. Someone certainly should have told the people of 2072. They decided to mess around with it to... "check out time". With their Advanced Prototype EXploration units(yeah, that *is* a pretty dumb abbreviation), they... well, do so. Apparently. And one of the trips have Nicholas Sinclair going back, because, uhm, something didn't go as planned(...who'da thunk?). He's recently been having nightmares about his wife disappearing by way of a cheap editing trick. This gives him a nasty case of Must Narrate Everything, in spite of the fact that, with two exceptions, what he says, *we already know*. Anyway, he ends up in an alternate time-line where the robots(and yes, there is a nice amount of sequences of humans fighting them in this... and the suits aren't bad, nor is the weaponry on them, with rockets and machineguns) they would send back(to combat the virus that going back in time would create... and they've been programmed to destroy all biological life, I guess... that was good thinking guys, honestly... how could *anyone* think that would backfire?), as these have been constantly been sent back(... automatically? And they keep being made... by who or what?) for 100 years(...wait, we've survived a century of this war?). Don't worry, the people there have figured out how to smash those metal mf-ers into... oh, wait... plus, he meets up with Duke Nukem. Perhaps you've already realized that this script wasn't authored by someone holding a Ph.d. It's pretty straightforward, and the paradoxes don't hold up to scrutiny. Yes, the AI's aim sucks when it needs to. No, the characters are stereotypical. Yes, the lead being in love with this "universe's" version of his spouse(who resembles her by appearance *only*) means he's really superficial. However, if you watched The Terminator and spent the whole time wishing the entire thing was set in the future... well, this is a fix for you. This is 96 minutes sans credits, and most of it is in a post apocalyptic, dystopian future with plenty of explosions, shooting and... well, attempts at tension. The acting is decent. There is lot of bloody violence and disturbing content and a sex scene(not graphic) in this. I recommend this to those that just want to unwind with something like this. 5/10