Review of Evolver (1995) by Mike G — 07 Apr 2010

Exactly how many 90's John De Lancie films are there anyway? I could look it up but it's more fun just to discover a new one every now and then. Today's movie is Evolver.

Evolver is the story of a kid named Kyle Baxter (Ethan Embry) and his love of a new VR video game. He's trying to master the game so that he can get the high score and win the grand prize which is an Evolver robot of your very own. Even though he is defeated he ultimately wins the tournament and soon John De Lancie and Paul Dooley show up to deliver his victory dance. Evolver starts off with meager laser tag/roomba features but quickly becomes much more than the sum of its programming. After Kyle foolishly drops Evolver off for a peep show in the girl's locker room it is promptly discovered and thrown out into the hall. For some reason it opens another door and finds itself face to face with clenched man ass in the boy's locker room. After being pelted with foam bullets the bullish male youth throws Evolver across the floor and into a locker. Reacting like you or I Evolver then decides to shoot the boy in the eye with a ball bearing at 10,000 feet per second. Apparently that is worth 50 damage points in case you wanted to know. This caused the boy to run away and ultimately seal his own fate by turning his back to Evolver. From there we see the story progress as Evolver switches into S.W.O.R.D mode and tries to take out all of it's enemies including it's creator, Kyle, his friends, and his family.

First let me say that Kyle's mom is about three seconds away from being the worst mom ever. She almost doesn't let Kyle win the award by generally being a nosy McDoucherson. Any good parent would let their child at least have the dignity to win the award and be excited on camera before dashing their dreams. She finally does let them actually bring Evolver in the house but she still berates Kyle by saying that this is just "one more thing" to distract him. Once the kids start playing tag with Evolver she freaks out and drops a plate on the floor when she is struck by a foam round. Hell, if I was a semi-intelligent robot I'd shoot her too. After that she generally appears to be working her real estate gig 90% of the time. The only other time we see her for more than 2 seconds is when Evolver takes her hostage by using a diffracted laser beam to simulate jail cell bars. What is stupid is that not only does Kyle's mom not try to flip over the device that is emitting the laser and get away but that she somehow manages to get her robe caught the beam, setting herself on fire. What a dummy.

Our hero Kyle on the other hand is quite brilliant. Since it's 1995 just owning a computer makes you a 1337 hacker and Kyle is no exception. Apart from always using his keyboard Russian style Kyle can also get past security with the greatest of ease. Also he is only person I've ever seen who acts surprised when he gets a "disk read error" after putting a CD into a floppy drive.

One quick rant. I've noticed that a lot of movies that feature computer hacking always have the secret knowledge sorted into a few neat categories on the screen. e.g. Everything you wanted to know about Evolver. What is with that? Is that a plot device or just lazy writing?

So yeah, Evolver, what else should I say. Well, firstly I say watch it. It's a good time. I especially love that Evolver goes all Johnny 5 disassemble on people. If you're a John De Lancie fan this is a must see. If you watched Arcade with Peter Billingsley, this is a must see. If you have a pulse and love watching 90's BS VR movies this is a must see. If you do not fit one of these demographics, you can skip this one if you want.

Things I learned from watching Evolver.

1. Inflatable alligators can protect you from electrocution.

2. High tech robots gradually need more and more power regardless of their initial power storage design.

3. Not only have we invented energy based pulse weapons but we've successfully incorporated them into toys.

4. When you see something like Evolver for the first time the only appropriate response is "It's like a computer on wheels.".

5. If you extract a CD from a drive with needle nose pliers you do 78% damage to the surface of a disc.

6. You can say "You act like you're my girlfriend or something!" to a girl because the next day she will try to seduce you when your Vespa runs out of gas.

7. If you throw a flaming teddy bear onto the carpet, the carpet doesn't catch fire.

8. All high tech robots use parallel ports as their primary data interface.

9. Any girl is instantly transformed into a tom boy simply by putting on overalls.

10. You can smoke weed at a gaming center and not get kicked out.