Hardware

I must admit I am a huge fan of this under-estimated, enigmatic South African director.

Like his magnificent masterpiece, Dust Devil, Hardware deals with similar themes - the desert, the Old Testament, and sexual violence.

I first saw this movie many years ago when still basically a kid before I went to film school and certain sequences have stayed with me forever.

Watching it again in 2005 the movie seems a little dated or rather post-rock video in places, but when it was made in 1990, this was all cutting-edge stuff. I am not giving anything away by saying that the plot is in many ways a re-working of The Terminator or Alien, when Dylan McDermott gives his girlfriend Jill (played by Stacey Travis)what he thinks is a load of unusual scrap metal salvaged from the desert. She is an artist and welds these robot parts to a sculpture she is making...

This is an extremely visceral movie, laced with religious iconography (mark-13 often adopts crucifixion poses and in the shower scene at the end, appears to be in a prayer position) and boosted by an extremely eclectic and unusual cast. Motorhead singer Lemmy crops up playing a sort of ferryman, Iggy Pop plays DJ Angry Bob, and John Lynch is excellent as my favourite character from this film, Shades.

The narrative is essentially straight-forward but what makes this movie different and memorable is Stanley's vision. The mise-en-scene is bleached red (post-appocalypse), the use of montage is often extremely effective and nightmarish and I was frequently reminded when watching it of Renaissence paintings, just in glimpses here and there (hell, maybe that's just me..!) There is also some American comment in this movie; mark-13 is adorned with a stars-and-stripes, and the deadly toxin it employs is described as 'smelling like apple pie'. This of course is akin to Dust Devil, where the demon is simply called 'Texas' by Wendy.

So, to conclude, if you haven't seen this movie or heard of this director before I urge you to seek him out. Anyone with a love for avant-garde and challenging cinema (like me) should have heard of this guy (proper auteur by the way) and his thematically-consistent visions.

This is still a fine film but probably hasn't aged as well as it might have done - it's strength is that it is far more complex than it first appears to be.

If ever you want an example of a very 1980s movie, with soaring Pink Floyd imitation guitars, then make a note of Hardware. Hardware is actually, even at this early age, part of a robot tradition. Star Wars had been around for a while, and then there was The Black Hole (1979), Saturn 3 (1980), and Short Circuit (1986). I'm giving this movie a 7 because it entertained, but if I were a real movie critic I'd give it less. Almost all the camerawork is in a close-up range, and the robots field of vision was way too spludgey, a sort of amateur Predator vision. We needed wider shots to really see the robot, and we needed to see more of the city itself, not just the crazy lady's crazy artist's loft. Anyway, that's my take. I liked the soundtrack and the human characters, they were all really suitably post-apocalypse, and the general story made sense in a sci-fi fashion, and the ravages of the droid were suitably outrageous. I'd love to see it remade with a more modern take. This is definitely one for the archives.

This is a very cool little sci-fi flick. OK, it's no Aliens, but it has a lot of really interesting things happening. First off it has a slick look, filmed very well by first time director/writer Richard Stanley, a lot of strobes and brilliant colour give it a perfect setting for the `robot goes crazy' plot. I also liked the post-apocalyptic landscape, which I think worked well along with Iggy Pop's narration as `Angry Bob'. It takes a little while to build, but the ending packs a decent punch, along with just enough gratuitous violence to keep me happy. There are also plenty of religious references and imagery to look for, all centering around the `MARK 13 Cyborg.' So, if you like sci-fi, I think you should give this movie a try, it's a pretty cool ride with some very cool imagery.

The 21st century world is a radioactive wasteland as a result of a nuclear war. A traveling scavenger comes across the remains of a cyborg named Mark 13 in the desert; He salvages pieces of it. The cyborg head ends up with a metal sculptress, who is unaware of the cyborg's infamy as a governmental killing machine project that was scrapped due to its defects. Mark 13 reconstructs itself utilizing household appliances and metal parts, and goes amok.

Hardware is a movie that relies on its post-modernistic stylings to bring out its flavor but most of the time it falls flat. It's full of oddly placed music, I heard somewhere that the director Richard Stanley used to direct music videos, so maybe that explains a few reasons as to why this movie is the way it is. The red filter used through at least 50% of the movie can become highly annoying and get in the way of viewing some potentially good, violent scenes. Also the scenes which slowly push the plots progression could have done without the distraction.

Luckily enough, when the movie really gets going (it takes almost an hour!) its quite a fun ride of just extremely painful death scenes as the clunky robot Mark-13 chases down all humans in his way.

After all the horrible things I heard about this movie, I wasn't expecting much when I found it for $3 in a pawn shop... and, after watching it a couple of times, I don't know what the hell people who say this is "the worst movie in the world" were smoking... because this is one of the best low-budget sci-fi flicks I have ever come across.

Though it is by no means a sublime piece of art, I find the fact that the plot concerns one woman and her boyfriend fighting off this robot in her apartment, with the collapsing world as a backdrop around them to be somewhat refreshing in an age of sci-fi films trying to be epic and ending up trite. Though clumsily written at times and with the robot looking almost ridiculous at points, we get a nicely shot, stylishly lit sci-fi thriller that takes place on a human scale and whose premise has enough depth, symbolism and irony to make it all worthwhile. Best film I have ever seen? Hardly. But the best deal I've had for $3 in a very, very long time.