A.P.E.X.

STAR RATING:*****Unmissable****Very Good***Okay**You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead*Avoid At All Costs

In the year 2073,Nicholas Sinclair (Richard Keats) is a scientist working at a time travelling research facility.He has a wife,the beautiful Natasha (Lisa Ann Russell) and works under the command of Dr Elgin (David Jean Thomas).One day,they send a probe 100 years in to the past and completely change the course of history.While attempting to sort out the peoblem,Sinclair finds himself convulted to a present where he finds himself a member of an elite squadron of soldiers,including pent-up muscle man Shepherd (Mitchell Cox),volatile macho man Taylor (Marcus Aurelis) and reserved background man Rasheed (Adam Lawson),not to mention Natasha,who in the present he could remember was his sweet,humble wife but who here is a 'hardened combat soldier',battling an army of robots who can't shoot straight.Sinclair must survive in this hostile environment long enough to find a way back to the present he remembers and stop the accident from ever happening.

The plot is as blatant a rip off of T2 as you could hope to find without the producers being sued for copyright theft,right down to the grey robots causing lots of death and destruction.Said robots are actually really cool,though rather clunky in both their appearance and movement,cruelly exposing the production values of a film that must have had a pretty high budget for a film of it's made-for-video magnitude.

They're not the only problems the film must contend with,however.It must also reckon with a dodgy,confused storyline that never seems to move from one sequence to the next with much in the way of coherence and one or two characters who are just that little bit too contrived in the mould in which they were sculpted to be taken that seriously.There is,however,some good,involving acting on display,not to mention some enjoyable action and one inventive sequence involving a music CD being inserted in to one of the robots when it really shouldn't.You didn't get a scene like that in T2,did you?

Speaking of which,both films are enjoyable enough on their own seperate levels.It's just,I dunno.T2 is Alton Towers,this is the mop fair.Y' know what I'm sayin'?***

I really like the premise of the film; time travel; time continuum violation; a scientist trapped in a violent world. His wife in his own world, is now,in his new world, a tough soldier, stricken with a fatal virus; and she doesn't even like him. He is trying desperately to repair the damage to time, and return the world from that of a violent war zone, beset by robots trying to exterminate all human life, to his own advanced and sophisticated culture. The idea, and the low budget presentation, are intriguing.

I do not believe that every science fiction film can or will have a huge budget and expensive special effects. I enjoyed the actors, the acting and the adventure. I was able to immerse myself in the characters and flow right through the film with them. A.P.E.X has a strong plot, excellent continuity, good science, adventure, suspense and lots of excitement. The director did an excellent job of creating a world on the verge of extinction, hanging onto its humanity by slender threads.

The only elements I did not care for at all, were the extremely foul language that pervaded the entire film; and the degrading stereotyping of the black soldier. He was a good actor, and had a lot more to offer than that of a modern day ghetto brute. His character could have been rough and crude without being completely obscene. All they had to do was leave out all the bad language. The actor did a fine job with his role anyway. I enjoyed his rendition of his character.

I often think that some day, in a more enlightened cultural time frame, we are going to be completely ashamed of the foul language that currently pervades and debases even our finest films. There will possibly be an effort to clean up the old films, and a debate will rage as to whether this is akin to colorization, and destroys the artistic intent of the films. Let us hope.

At any rate, A.P.E.X. is an enjoyable science fiction experience, even with the obscenities intact. I recommend it for mature science fiction fans.

Time travel usually goes wrong. I think all machines designed for that purpose are legally required to have something like that written on a sticker on it. Someone certainly should have told the people of 2072. They decided to mess around with it to... "check out time". With their Advanced Prototype EXploration units(yeah, that *is* a pretty dumb abbreviation), they... well, do so. Apparently. And one of the trips have Nicholas Sinclair going back, because, uhm, something didn't go as planned(...who'da thunk?). He's recently been having nightmares about his wife disappearing by way of a cheap editing trick. This gives him a nasty case of Must Narrate Everything, in spite of the fact that, with two exceptions, what he says, *we already know*. Anyway, he ends up in an alternate time-line where the robots(and yes, there is a nice amount of sequences of humans fighting them in this... and the suits aren't bad, nor is the weaponry on them, with rockets and machineguns) they would send back(to combat the virus that going back in time would create... and they've been programmed to destroy all biological life, I guess... that was good thinking guys, honestly... how could *anyone* think that would backfire?), as these have been constantly been sent back(... automatically? And they keep being made... by who or what?) for 100 years(...wait, we've survived a century of this war?). Don't worry, the people there have figured out how to smash those metal mf-ers into... oh, wait... plus, he meets up with Duke Nukem. Perhaps you've already realized that this script wasn't authored by someone holding a Ph.d. It's pretty straightforward, and the paradoxes don't hold up to scrutiny. Yes, the AI's aim sucks when it needs to. No, the characters are stereotypical. Yes, the lead being in love with this "universe's" version of his spouse(who resembles her by appearance *only*) means he's really superficial. However, if you watched The Terminator and spent the whole time wishing the entire thing was set in the future... well, this is a fix for you. This is 96 minutes sans credits, and most of it is in a post apocalyptic, dystopian future with plenty of explosions, shooting and... well, attempts at tension. The acting is decent. There is lot of bloody violence and disturbing content and a sex scene(not graphic) in this. I recommend this to those that just want to unwind with something like this. 5/10

An interesting premise, where scientists send time-traveling robots to do research with the caveat that they must not leave any traces of their presence in the past, including witnesses. An accident involving the elimination of said witnesses causes a paradox where one of the scientists in charge of the time-travel experiment finds himself in a parallel post-apocalyptic world where soldiers constantly battle a seemingly never-ending supply of time-traveling robots. The low budget shows and the tactics employed to eliminate the robots (gunfire at close quarters for the most part) seem silly, but the movie's an entertaining weekend time-filler.

I first saw A.P.E.X. a long, long while back, I couldn't have been more than about 10 years old at the time and my understanding of it was negligible. All I really remembered was cool robots and a complicated story involving time travel and a plague, which was about enough to convince me to give it a second shot when it appeared on TV, since the passage of years has given early 90's straight to video science fiction of this sort a curious fascination for me that actually outstrips the excitement that they originally induced. Remarkably A.P.E.X. actually repaid my interest, its certainly no classic but as far as its genre goes it certainly ain't too bad. The key is the plot, the film deals in a pretty interesting science fiction concept with a neat emotional hook for its main character. Basically, a mishap involving an exploratory time travelling robot results in our hero landing in a parallel reality that has branched off from his own, confronting him with his greatest fear, that of losing his beloved wife. The film tries to deal with post apocalyptic themes, parallel worlds and the consequences of paradoxes upon the time line, and though it can't quite keep itself together its imaginative and intriguing stuff. The plot actually holds up better than a number of reviews here would suggest, although there are one or two notable holes and clear contrivances. Despite problems the ambition is laudable, it's just a shame that the same ambition didn't carry over to the action, which mostly consists of repetitious shoots outs with robots. The pyrotechnics budget was clearly decent so there are plenty of explosions, plus the robots are pretty cool, shining golden creates with ridge plated armour and both shoulder and hand cannons. But the action gets dull pretty quickly and neither the robots nor humans have realistic or interesting tactics. Acting turns do a better than expected job of sustaining interest, though nobody is much more than merely "there" certain of the cast do convey a certain sympathy and interest. Richard Keats for example as the hero, he can't put across much reaction to the situation but is likable enough, Lisa Anne Russell has a sullen attractiveness, Marcus Aurelius appropriately grating as the token a-hole character, it's all fair enough for this level of film. Some of the writing works, some doesn't and while I appreciated that the film wasn't bogged down with techno-babble it could have done with a bit more explanation. The direction from Philip J. Roth (who turned out to be a low budget sci fi regular and also wrote the film) is occasionally stylish in its use of lighting, with green, red and dark moments put to good effect, he has a fair handling on atmosphere but I wish he had put more flair into the action. Altogether I thought this was a fair enough film. Only likely to appeal to sci fi buffs and they'll probably have a field day tearing it apart, but I had a reasonable enough time. 5/10 from me then.