Hardware

Watching 1990's HARDWARE was especially discomforting while the Corona virus global pandemic of 2020 raged on.  But then, watching any post apocalyptic cinematic vision would've been, be it THE TERMINATOR or MAD MAX series, both of which HARDWARE seems to have been inspired by.  I would also have to add films like ALIEN and DEMON SEED, plus a few dozen others.  That is one of the film's problems; it seems like warmed over familiarity.  Like we're watching someone's ambitious but half-hearted homage.  Writer/director Richard Stanley makes a game effort, and occasionally scores with a good idea and scene, but overall his film is forgettable.  Don't tell that to its decent sized cult.

It's sometime in the future in an unidentified landscape.  The world has become a wasteland, a junkyard.  Radiation saturates the infrastructure and its inhabitants.  The government is about to about to institute widespread sterilization.   A snarky radio DJ named Angry Bob tries to make light of it all with his news reports, in between Iggy Pop songs.  Angry Bob is voiced by......Iggy Pop.  Motorhead's Lemmy also shows up as a cab driver, but never mind.  Soldier Mo (Dylan McDermott) has returned from a long tour of duty and is eager to get his girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis) a Christmas gift.  As she likes to create metal sculptures, Mo buys a curious robot head from a scavenger at a junk dealer's outpost. Jill immediately puts the head into her current art project.  Too bad it may have originally been part of a government plot to control overpopulation, and can repair itself.

This sets the stage for the film's final forty minutes or so, during which Jill battles the M.A.R. K. 13 (Note that the New Testament book of Mark, chapter 20 verse 13, is also quoted in this movie) robot after it assembles itself out of Jill's other scraps.  Her voyeuristic and disgusting neighbor, after some lascivious and unsuccessful come-ons, tries to help.  As eventually do Mo and assorted security workers and friends.  The intensity level (and near seizure inducing flashing visuals) hardly let up in the third act, but somehow it is all very hit and miss.  Maybe the story is too thin (though has some interesting potential subtext), and the characterizations likewise.  The narrative is clunky.  The low budget is stretched fairly well, but Stanley's direction is variable throughout.  That may have made the difference.

Sci-fi/horror fans should give it a look.  The soundtrack is good.  Gore fans will have their moments.  Overall though, HARDWARE is just nasty and undistinguished.