Max Headroom

Max Headroom is an excellent Sci-Fi movie that has a great story, interesting characters and very witty dialogue. The dreary futuristic world it depicts is the hook that caught me and it's a movie all Sci-Fi fans should warmly embrace.

Amanda Pays, worth the price of admission all by herself, as Theora Jones and Matt Frewer as both Edison Carter and the title character Max both really make this film work. The supporting cast with the likes of William Morgan Sheppard and Hilary Tindall as "Reg" and "Dominique", the quirky owners of Bigtime Television, and Nickolas Grace who nails the part of "Grossman", head honcho at Network 23, also give great performances here. Hilton McRae along with his sidekick George Rossi, "Breugal" and "Mahler", add a humorous yet scary touch while doing the dirty work for computer nerd "Bryce" who is well played by Paul Spurrier. All-in-all this is a movie which shouldn't be missed.

Luckily I recorded Max Headroom on VHS during one of the times it was shown on Cinemax but I've watched it so many times since, it's getting fuzzier every time I see it. For the powers that be, PLEASE PUT THIS OUT ON DVD!!!

For some reason unknown to me I received this video as a prize/gift from a company called 'Argus Press' who in the early '80's were one of many prolific ZX Spectrum games producers. Don't remember entering a competition, but there you go....

Anyhow, the film was brilliant, and not to be confused with the later TV series that, from the other write ups, I now learn of.

If this film is not on DVD then it should be. The dark urbun setting of some nightmare future is perfectly portrayed and the story is much as has been described in previous reviews.

Blipverts! - I'm surprised they aren't on Fox nowadays, in saying that the most indolent members of society may be most at risk there! The one thing that hasn't been mentioned, but that should be emphasized, is the fantastic soundtrack, coming as it did from the pen of Midge Ure who had recently departed the prolific 'Ultravox'. The setting, soundtrack, script and performance from a tremendous bunch of characters made this a film that, to this day, I still pull out of the loft and watch on my annual pilgrimage back home for Christmas.

To me its the urbun dystopia, the (then) futuristic use of desktop computers to track the action and the soundtrack that made this one hell of a movie and one of the most unsung of the 1980's.

Reporter Edison Carter discovers that an advertising medium developed by the TV network he works for is killing viewers. The network attempts to 'dispose' of him and replace him with a computer generated version. And so the story goes...

This is a really good film, taking the bleak vision of Blade-Runner and injecting a little 20th century realism. Set in a world where TV networks rule and the population is made up of couch potatoes who rarely venture into the desolation outside their doors, Max Headroom is frighteningly plausible and potentially very downbeat.

However, the story has enough lighter moments to balance the overall darkness of the film and together with a likeable and talented cast, this is a thoroughly enjoyable film that - like its content - was maybe a bit too ahead of its time. 10/10.

I loved this film back in the 80s, and its story of CGI characters to replace real people for TV is easily a possibility now. This is my favourite film ever, infact I only found out today that the its less than an hour long - theres so much going on Id swear it was 90 mins plus.

Anyone who is remotely into Sci Fi or computer graphics should see this, or anyone who just likes unusual films and fancies a break from the norm without being bored.

If this was a Manga cartoon instead of a British film, it would be massive!

Like the TV show that followed it, the "Max Headroom" movie was a great grim look into a bleak, Blade-Runner-esque future ruled by corporations who keep the proletariat down by anesthetizing them with junk food and mind-numbing television pageantry. The parallels are frightening, or haven't you seen a Jerry Springer audience lately? The UK movie is, if anything, even grittier and more creepy than the eventual US pilot and TV series. It's out of print, but well worth searching out -- a dramatic, thought-provoking example of everything that's good about science fiction.