Shockwave - L'attacco dei droidi

With the notable exception of the excellent "Dark Kingdom," the SciFi Channel seems to have an aversion to original productions that don't insult its audience's intelligence. Self-aware combat robots decide to go into business for themselves after crashing on a tropical island that looks amazingly like Santa Barbara County. A commando team is sent in with the brainiac daughter of the scientist who created the critters, charged not with destroying but recapturing them. Complicating matters is a trio of cruise-ship robbers whose getaway helicopter happened to crash on the same island for the same reason (a sudden, unexpectedly huge tropical storm that the gods tossed in to add to the tension because it would be too much work to create it through the story). The machines resemble H.G. Wells's original fighting machines, with the embittered sociopathy of "The Terminator's" SkyNet & the opportunistic assimilation abilities shown in "South Park's" episode "Trapper Keeper." Bits & pieces of story elements that could be attributed to "Resident Evil," "Westworld" & any number of trapped-on-an-island-with-monsters movies serve to finish off any hint of originality. The CGI critter-machines are up to par, although they make annoying creaking noises like the Tin Man from "The Wizard of Oz." The other sets & props range from so-so to laughably cheap. The commandos are ludicrously incompetent, having received their patrolling, combat & weapons training from third-graders in some backyard. "Star Trek" icons George Takei (ex-Sulu) & Michael Dorn (ex-Worf) might have lent some interest but share no scenes together & have small, dispensable parts. "AI" violates one of the most basic rules in monster movies by both showing & describing the monster in the very first scene, leaving nothing more for imagination or anticipation. The same carelessness with the sets is given to the explanation of the monsters & the rationale for their misbehavior, although the word "matrix" is applied to them at least 3 times. Why does SciFi keep doing this to us? Is it because Michael Bay keeps getting away with making giant movies without plausible stories? Are we being collectively punished for our morbid fascination with Edward D. Wood, Jr.? Is there some secret proviso in Hollywood that prohibits the possession of a valid library card? I'd rather sit through a miniseries of all 39 sequels to "The Wizard of Oz" than see more of these. Uh-oh, better be careful what I wish for.

Another made-for-Tele movie which is completely horrible. There is barely any plot, the acting, writing, and of course the god-awful directing of today's worst director and Ed Wood impersonator, Jim Wynorski, who, when not making terrible plot less porn movies with hideous women, is making crappy straight to video or Sci-fi "original" movies. Basically this is a bad rip-off of War of the worlds, and to top it all off, it's another failed attempt of a Sci-fi original movie. If Sci-fi continually pulls bad ideas out of their ass with overtones of someone Else's' films, then the horror business if being dug to an early grave. Which is sad because I am a horror filmmaker myself of what one may call 'b-flicks' but when I see these computer-generated bloody bull-crap, it makes me want to throw up. If this movie comes on the Tele again, kill yourself, it will make you hate your remaining life.

Yeah, it's a good question - and a rhetorical one too. Judging by the sub-SyFy Channel standard of A.I. ASSAULT, aka SHOCKWAVE, the answer's a definite "no", because this is Z-grade CGI trash through and through. The problem with A.I. ASSAULT is that it's saddled with an absolutely awful, lunk-headed script which starts nowhere and goes nowhere. The characters are cardboard cut-outs, the performances would stink in a porn film, and the direction is sub-par. In fact, the only thing good about the whole movie is a pair of alien robots which dominate the storyline.

These creations are shamelessly lifted from Wells' original WAR OF THE WORLD, giant Tripod-things that go around butchering soldiers in various mildly gory (but inevitably cheesy) ways. They show promise, but the premise soon boils down to various characters wandering around an island somewhere, endlessly fighting them off and getting bumped off one by one. It's all very humdrum and by rote; the robots could be exchange for any movie monster in existence and it would all boil down to the same thing.

The film's main selling point is the presence of a number of ex-STAR TREK actors who inevitably show up for brief cameos before disappearing again. An indelibly aged George Takei is here, along with Robert Picardo and Michael Dorn. B-movie favourite Tim Thomerson also appears as a stuffy army official. Sadly, none of these actors even come close to making A.I. ASSAULT anything approaching a decent movie.

While transporting airborne two state-of-art robots with artificial intelligence and a team of scientists, the ultimate weapons are accidentally activated, killing the humans and crashing the airplane in an isolated island. A team of marines leaded by Major Richard Tunney (Joe Lando) and with the support of the scientist Susan Foster (Lisa LoCicero) is assigned to retrieve or destroy the robots within a schedule. Meanwhile, a gang of thieves that had robbed US$ 2,000,000.00 in a passenger vessel has trouble with the rotor of their helicopter and lands in the same island.

"A.I. Assault" is flawed and full of holes, and my only consolation is that I have seen movies worse than this one. The story is absurd: the helicopter of the thugs lands exactly in the same dangerous island; the military force brings inadequate weapons, in spite of knowing that only one rifle is suitable to fight against the invincible robots; their adviser, Dr. Susan Foster, acts like a retarded; the pilot of the helicopter has a crisis of morality and leaves two million dollars in the island. The robots seem to be prepared to destroy ham actors and actresses, actually that is what they do along the movie, therefore they are useful weapons. The story is a sort of "Jurassic Park III" with the devices from the 2006 "War of the Worlds", and the special effects are reasonable for a B-movie. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Shockwave"

Wow, you ARE a picky bunch, aren't you? Look, this is a SciFi (now SyFy) channel movie. We all know what we're in for before the movie even starts. You can't compare it to the 100-200 million dollar theatrical releases. SyFy cranks these babies out on the cheap, and you get what you'd expect; SFX that can be done on home PC's, B and C grade actors, and older actors that are now out of fame and just looking for something to do.

In this case they did a cool thing and brought in Star Trek alum from three versions of the franchise; Takei, from TOS, Dorn, from NG, and Picardo, from Voyager. SyFy offers these guys maybe $25,000 for a couple days work on what are, essentially, extended cameos. They sit around between shots, sipping martini's and reminiscing over the old times. They give half-baked performances, get one or two minutes of screen time each, cash their checks and go home. Hell, I'd do it. For their part, SyFy gets to use their names for promoting the film.

As SyFy channel movies go, this one was OK. Fact is, I thought the SFX were better than in many of these little time-wasters. They go cheap and don't worry about details, like captain's bars on their collar and sergeant's stripes on their sleeve (this from one of the movies I saw a couple years ago). My favorite from this one is that all the Special Forces guys are carrying M16A2's, except one guy, who's using a 50 year old M16A1. Not a chance this would happen in real life, but to be honest, I think they do a lot of that stuff on purpose, to give guys like me the fun of spotting those errors.

It's just campy fun, like Snakes On A Plane, and if you watch until the first commercial break you'll know the entire plot, and after that you can go to the bathroom, grab another beer, or answer the phone and have no fear that you'll miss a vital plot point.

So lighten up, people. This fluff won't kill you, and let's face it, the other 80 channels are all filled with stuff like Real Housewives of Barstow, Law & Order reruns from the 1990's, and Tory Spelling movies (Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?).

I'd say this was an average SyFy channel effort.