Prototype humain

That Terminator-like metal skull with the pointy teeth and glowing red eye has absolutely nothing to do with this movie. That was obviously just some ad executive's attempt to play on the popularity of "Ahnold's" film successes. Ditto for the tag line "The future is not friendly." Instead, "Prototype" is a thoughtful, well played drama about two character's struggles to understand and deal with the world around them. Christopher Plummer is on solid ground as the scientist who wants his creation to have a chance at life, and David Morse is spectacularly understated as the android prototype of the title.

What makes this so compelling is the same thing that makes all of the best science fiction or fantasy work: The principle players take the situation and their part in it as real, without engaging in histrionics. As Michael, Morse indulges in neither the overplayed "childlike wonder" nor the hyper-mechanical stiffness so often poured into similar roles by lesser actors. Michael is "other" without being weird.

Well worth a look.

Christopher Plummer plays Dr. Carl Forrester, who is part of research team experiment an android with artificial intelligence. David Morse plays Michael the android. When Dr. Forrester finds out that the team is using Michael for a soldier in military. He hides Michael and starts a new life but for how long? Well worth your time to watch.

I, too, bought this movie out of some bargain bin and it lay around our house for quite some time before my wife and I watched it. We were, in a word, quite surprised and pleased to encounter a science fiction movie about an intelligent robot that for once did not rely on special effects to make its point.

"Prototype" is a thoughtful look, not only at the emotions of a man who has dedicated more or less his whole career to creating a human-like robot , but also at the thought processes of such a creature as it actually goes into the world and has to react with real people and situations. The story builds to an inevitable climax very smoothly.

The cast is quite good and the production values, such as they are (the budget was obviously rather low), do not detract at all from the story. In fact, a great deal of the story takes place out of doors or in real buildings, giving the whole film a touch of reality.

A great deal has been left unexplained, such as the building of the robot, which has already been accomplished as the story begins. One also wonders what powers the robot. The viewer must simply pass over that and concentrate on the existential dilemma of the robot and its creator.

I definitely recommend this movie. It is a pleasant change of pace from the current spate of SF films that depend so much on spectacular visual effects. "Prototype" is definitely an example of the thinking man's science fiction. Just the kind of story that John Campbell would have published in the old Astounding Science Fiction magazine. (Just to make sure that there is no misunderstanding, that is a compliment, considering how much of the maturity of modern science fiction resulted from Campbell's wise editorship of that great magazine.)

But I was quickly reassured. From the moment Christopher Plummer shows himself to be a genuinely irascible old man and not your typical 'hero', and David Morse as the android, in his elongated pants and wide-open baby-face, made their first appearances, I was held. With its' plot -- professor wants to keep his invention out of the hands of the military -- this is nothing new in the plot department but it is written with care, and the cast (including the wonderful Frances Steenhagen as Plummers' feisty wife) and a good director, David Greene, make the most of it. The ending is a stunner, both clever and touching. On my list as one of those films I was expecting nothing of and was delightfully surprised.

This is one of the most compelling and heartbreaking redux of the Frankenstein story set in a modern age. Plummer gives a great portrayal of a scientist working to push make his vision come true without realizing why it is so important. David Morse is very good as Michael the Prototype android of the title. His innocent curiousity about the world pulled me into the story. And his realization about the way things are in the end tore my heart. When Michael says, Don't hold me. You can feel the metal." The pain was shared between the three of us, Dr. Forrester, Michael and me.