Final Experiment

I consider myself to be a major contender in the terms of low budget science fiction, i'm not one to brag but when I was a teenager, the movie clerk would say that I was keeping him in business by renting the obscure flicks that basically came and went without much of an impression. Prototype X29A (Which I guess is titled Prototype) is a movie that reminded me a lot like the equally dull Nemesis, in that it seems to labor to tell a story that has lots of heart and excitement but fails in most regards. Actually there are some okay moments that surface, for one of the characters is admittedly likable. The guy in a wheelchair has our sympathy, he wants to become a robot so he can have his true love but this is all abandoned for stupid quirkiness which add little to the story and nothing that is interesting. Plus the whole rebel underground subplot and the totalitarian government are clichés borrowed from Albert Pyun. I actually saw Prototype X29A in a double-bill with ROTOR, at least ROTOR (While admittedly far worse) was hilarious to watch. This one was just a decorated bore with little merit.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

You know sometimes you're wandering through Youtube looking for groovy old scifi movies (that hark back to the days when a 40 MB hard drive was apparently something to get excited about) and you find yourself watching something that you then keep watching because you're convinced at some point the writer(s) will remember to inject a plot and some decent dialogue into the thing?

Yeahhh. That was me watching this ... and wondering why, at the 55 minute mark (a) nothing of note had happened, (b) I had no idea how any of the characters related to one another, (c) some wheelchair dude with an uber mullet was pouting a lot because his skanky gf wasn't putting out - coz he was in a wheelchair I think?, and (d) where this was all going... because it felt kinda like nowhere.

Luckily there's an option to skip ahead in small jumps, which I started doing at the 62 minute mark just to get some sort of closure before heading off to watch something actually entertaining.

Good luck. Recommended if you can't sleep...

Throughout the movie, I kept on thinking to myself, "This movie would have been a lot better if it were an anime." It has all the features of an anime and could have been a pretty good one, but it's just that it didn't work out too well with live action. It was easy to notice that the director had some nice ideas, with the colors and all, but it just didn't work out for him. To date, the only movies I've seen that have successfully portrayed a good anime in live action form are "Romeo Must Die," "The Matrix," and "Pi."

I know where it all went wrong. The cover. Prototype's tape cover shows a fake-looking robot standing against the background of a virtual reality grid. Instead it should have been showing a couple of lovers with expressions of suffering on their faces and some kind of dramatic quote. The movie should not have been called "Prototype" but rather something like "Desert Roses". It would have attracted a different kind of audience and would have perhaps been much better received.

Even if the people watching this B-movie do not admit to having any expectations for it, they are subconsciously expecting to see indications of some genre. Yet they receive none because Prototype can't pick a genre. Well then, is it like one of those smart genre-transcending films? Well, no. Firstly, because it is not smart and secondly, because even those kind of movies are clearly about something and generally pick an emotional focal point out of each genre on which to base the storyline and Prototype doesn't really get its footing in any of the genres. However if we tried to pinpoint a genre, it would most definitely not be an action movie, but a drama. It is a poorly executed drama.

The story is about a problematic couple getting caught up in the leftovers of a vague futuristic conspiracy. The setting is an 80s post-apocalyptic world.

There are multiple aspects of the story that could have been much better developed. It is not that the movie does not have enough material, like some have suggested. It is that the makers did not do enough with the material at hand. There is a whole movie out there about nothing more than a guy who gets his hand stuck in a rock, and it managed to keep its audience interested. Prototype is just poorly executed. The few action scenes are laughable. The stuff in between the action scenes doesn't have enough expression, contains horrible camera decisions and is in desperate need of better dialogue.

Having said that, the movie is somewhat underrated as it does have an interesting style and the acting, which this movie heavily relies upon, is not that bad. Unfortunately its style is a slow one, and unless you have a lot of patience with pessimistic sci-fi dramas, you will not like this.

I wish someone redid this movie and gave it life rather than a zombie existence.

Remember him from the O. J. Simpson trial? One of his earliest films. This movie has some style to it. The lighting, the editing, the music all has some Miami Vice influences. Too bad the screen play, script, and the acting is so bad. If you are in the mood for an early 90's throwback, and there is absolutely nothing else to watch... well, you've been warned.