Review of Hardware (1990) by Kurt A — 25 Mar 2010

Burglekutt dies! Death by poison from a dismembered yet somehow self aware prototype robot doom hand. Sorry for the spoiler but like you really care anyway.

This movie is as independent and British as it comes. Set in the post apocalyptic future our not so lovable protagonist buys a droid head and figures that he just invested in the ultimate Christmas gift for his girlfriend. So he travels the wastes and convinces her to let him in long enough to give her the droid head and have a quickie. Being the artsy crafty type she paints the droid head in red white and blue; mounting it into a piece of art with an odd, preexisting, droid shaped head hole. From there, it gets weird.

Honestly, I don't like this movie. I can appreciate the amount of effort that went into the effects and the atmosphere but it's lost on me. This movie is really depressing, as you would expect, but that takes something away from the enjoyment. When you get ready to watch a movie you never say "I want to watch something nice and depressing so that I'll feel like considering suicide afterwards." No, you always say "I feel like watching something fun / entertaining / funny / awesome / scary / new / sexy / uplifting / interesting / critically acclaimed / intense / classic / campy / nostalgic / controversial / where things just blow up / original / eccentric / schlocky / beautiful / mysterious / just plain hokey / set in a period / gruesome / with my favorite actor in it / directed by / written by / with great special effects / low budget / independent / unknown / to fall asleep to / called the Hebrew Hammer" So my point is. Life is depressing enough. We don't need movies to help make us more depressed. If you want to feel depressed then watch Dead Ringers. There's a cheery one. If you already have negative influences in your life, don't watch Hardware.

Ok, for those of you who stuck it out through the last paragraph you are ... probably not going to find what I have to say worth your while. My second reason for not liking this movie is that it has one of the creepiest f*#king dudes ever in it. Some disgusting fat weirdo former surveillance expert who likes to banter to other people having sex while he watches through a looking glass and gets his rocks off. I'd like to think that even after the world ends we won't end up like that guy. I didn't even cheer when he died. I wish he never would've existed in the first place. That is like serial killer grade messed up. If you watch this movie that will be in your head forever.

The special effects are pretty good. They did a really good job of setting the tone for the movie, even if I didn't care for it. This is probably someone's favorite movie. It's just not for me.