Overview: Bronx Executioner is yet another example of a movie where they spent more on the completely unrelated cover art than they did the entire production. Truly, looking at that, and in reading the cool description, you’d think this is might be a pretty decent low-budget cyberpunk flick. Here’s the description:

Android gangs battle humans and Robotic Replicants in the New York City of the near future. The sector sheriff must join forces with a gigantic, yet unpredictable Replicant in order to save the city…

Now, for what you actually get:

• Absolutely NO replicant or robot visuals
• NO dystopic New York. This was clearly filmed in the Italian equivalent of the outskirts of Los Angeles. The terrain is dry, and boring - no dystopic city here folks.
• a truly horrid Master-student sheriff coming of age story, that in the end is completely pointless
• Robots that supposedly have no emotion but still enjoy raping humans. I guess their parts work.
• a low quality body builder who can’t act to save his life who tells us he’s a robot replicant (we have to believe him as NONE of the replicants look like anything but humans)
• Lots and lots and lots of low quality gun fights between biker looking dudes (but we’re told half of them are robots). Road Warriors this isn’t!

The Bottom Line: The story pretty much sums this movie up: It’s about a body builder replicant who falls in love with a human (even though he doesn’t have the capability to fall in love) who gets raped by really mean replicants, so the body builder replicant asks the junior cop to help him get even with the meanie replicants. Sound stupid? Bingo! It’s pretty bad. And unfortunately, it’s not so bad that it’s good. The gratuitous breast shots just can’t save this turkey. It’s just bad, K?

Overview: Heavy Metal represents one of my great teenage film memories. Back in the day, before the porn repository known as the internet was formed, Heavy Metal was edgy stuff. As a young teen, Heavy Metal was everything a kid my age wanted to see – sex, drugs, rock-n-roll, violence, defiance of authority, and hot chicks! Add the most awesome hard rock soundtrack, and Heavy Metal became the drug of choice for young folk back then. That it was animated somehow made it alright with the parents. Make no mistake – Heavy Metal is not high brow fare, nor is it particularly well made. But it is definitely a very fun guilty pleasure.

The Story: Heavy Metal is a series of somewhat interrelated vignettes about the journey that ultimate evil makes, this time in form of an evil sentient green orb, called the Loch-Nar. The Loch-Nar captures a little girl in present times for reasons unknown till the end, and shows her a series of stories about how the Orb has corrupted people of all races in all times and places.

In each story segment, we get a strange, otherwordly setting in which the orb enters, corrupts and then leaves. Often a hero stops the orb from fully corrupting everything, but always the orb leaves a stain. The atmosphere is one of interrupting and ongoing scene with something truly unusual that occurs. But it’s the ending vignette, Taarna which is the best, and also the one that finally gives us insight into why the Loch-Nar has captured this little girl. Taarna isn’t really cyberpunk in any way but a few of the visuals, but it is a lot of fun.

Is it cyberpunk? Clearly, some of the vignettes, many in fact, are more fantasy than cyberpunk. So why do I have this movie listed? While some of the vignettes do have the cyberpunk feel, most clearly Harry Canyon, Heavy Metal absolutely belongs here due to its magazine roots. Both William Gibson and Ridley Scott credit visuals in the Heavy Metal Magazine is very influential for helping create their settings. Most cited is the Moebuis illustrated “The Long Tomorrow” comic. As you can see by the link, the Long tomorrow gives us a gritty neo-noir, near future comic that’s edgy, dangerous, and lots of fun. And more importantly, the atmosphere – the mood in Heavy Metal throughout seems pretty cyberpunk.

Heavy Metal is Male Fantasy Material: Heavy Metal is NOT sophisticated - far from it in fact. Heavy Metal caters to the sophomoric, prepubescent male, and emphasizes gratuitous nudity, hot chicks kicking butt, nerds who grow massive bodies and get laid, android-hot chick sex, etc. Heavy Metal falls right in line with the old “Gonad the Barbarian” style books, so in this way, it really isn’t cyberpunk. Cyberpunk as a sub-genre dramatically improved the quality and intelligence of what we found on the scifi-fantasy shelves. Heavy Metal the movie does not, although many of the stories do provoke an interesting thought or two.

The Animation: Each story segment is written and animated by completely different teams, although some of the voice actors such as John Candy appear in many episodes. Some of the segments seem pretty simple, whereas others have more than decent texture. All in all, Heavy Metal represents a mixed bag, but at the time, it truly was on the revolutionary side. While French director René Laloux’s most awesome animated movies were far better, outside of them, few things touched Heavy Metal. The fact that Heavy Metal included the themes and visuals teens were looking for back then transformed it into the ultimate cult rebellion flick.

The Sound Track: Heavy Metal still should be considered among the best sound tracks for a movie. It SOOO added to the atmosphere. We get a heaping dose of great hard rock from the likes of Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Sammy Hagar, Cheap Trick, and Don Felder’s most awesome rendition of Heavy Metal (Takin’ A Ride). In addition, we get great little 80s tunes like Devo’s “Working in a Coal Mine,” Journey’s “Open Arms,” and Stevie Nicks’ “Blue Lamp.” Truly, if you’re interested in experiencing 80s counter-culture at its fantasized finest, Heavy Metal is the movie to watch.

The Bottom Line: Heavy Metal is not a great movie, but it is a lot of fun. While it has a few vignettes that are clearly cyberpunk in nature, the majority of the movie is unsophisticated SciFi-Fantasy. Still, the visuals and atmosphere are more than interesting, as are the diversity of animation styles. Heavy Metal should be seen more for the vision this film represents from the Magazine. This, as much as anything is responsible for the genre we now call cyberpunk.

Overview: Some low-budget movies make it with a terrific story and just the right quality of effects; others come close; and others still get worried about not quite making it, so they decide to spew insane plot twists at the viewer in the hopes of increasing the tension. Unfortunately, Johnny 2.0 takes this tact. The movie was “teetering on the edge” of being decent, but fell off the wrong side. Instead of going with the stream of increasingly unbelievable plot twists, had they spent just a bit more on beefing up the story, Johnny 2.0 could have gotten some real kudos.

The Story: In the present, the experimentation with cloning begins to take off when scientist Johnny Dalton (Jeff Fahey) teams up with Frank Donahue (Michael Ironside) to create a small cloning start-up that has terrific potential. They are able to speed up the cloning process, and more surprisingly, are able to take an MRI scan of a person’s brain in a way that can record their entire set of memories. Unfortunately, anti-technology terrorists attack their complex and severely hurt Johnny, causing a massive, bleeding head injury.

Johnny wakes up later to find that almost 20 years have passed, and that he is no longer Johnny Dalton – he’s a clone. Now referred to as “Johnny 2.0,” Johnny’s memories extend only to the injury 20 years ago when he had a scan of his memory. Now, the earth has become a dystopia, where countries have broken down, and only the corporations exist to maintain order. Worse, the “real” Johnny Dalton has either been taken by terrorists, or worse, has joined them, and has taken all his research, including a software program that removes imperfections in clones. Now, unless Johnny 2.0 can find and return the original Johnny Dalton, his body will start to break down within the week!

While the story starts off in an interesting way, and generally keeps a decent pacing, as things get tense, instead of resolving things in an innovative way, the viewer is continually assaulted with the most extreme plot twists. OK, one or maybe two might work, but Johnny 2.0 just doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. Worse, in key scenes the rationale for certain characters starts to resemble the massive space invasion force surrounding Naboo in The Phantom Menace – they all seemingly took a lunch break when the counter attack came, leaving only one ship to defend their forces. When all is said and done, it’s simply not possible to suspend disbelief.

Johnny 2.0 Clone Technology Musings: For all its faults, Johnny 2.0 does have some interesting musings about cloning. The idea that clones can be sped up, and enhanced (by removing eye imperfections, improving the immune system, etc.) is interesting. More interesting is the idea that our memories can be recorded and re-inserted into a new host. Unfortunately, Johnny 2.0 doesn’t address idea with any degree of thought. In Johnny 2.0, the brain is essentially seen as an empty hard drive just waiting to be filled up with new memories. Even existing people apparently can have their memories wiped and re-inserted with new ones. Had this technology been combined with the rapid growth process, whereby a clone could be created while having their brain slowly become adapted to the imprinted memories, this would have worked lots better. Unfortunately, shortcomings in the ending narrative precluded anything unique here.

Even with the faults, Johnny 2.0 poses an interesting idea – that our existence could be perpetually extended by a combination of cloning and brain scanning. In Johnny 2.0, it’s the evil corporate head who is trying to cheat death, but if such a technology were created, one can only imagine the change we see in society. Imagine the chances we individually would take.

The FX: For the most part, the FX was what you’d expect – low budget TV fare. It wasn’t too distracting though, and pretty much worked for what was intended. Some of the effects, like the force field walkthrough scene was pretty forced though. One wonders why they would spend the money for a high-tech force field instead of a wall, especially when it can be penetrated so easily. They also seemed to try to stick VR helmets on everyone – this is more a sign of the times as VR stuff was hot in the mid nineties.

The Bottom Line: While the concept is interesting, this made for TV movie is poorly implemented. Although, there is enough here to get a modicum of enjoyment, and the movie does start off well enough that I feel compelled to give it at least a 5 star rating, especially considering it’s low budget. The actors were at least adequate (Michael Ironside of Total Recall fame was definitely the best of the bunch), so consider giving it a watch if nothing else strikes you.

Overview: What a strange movie to try to categorize. Bicentennial Man seems like a Sci-Fi movie at times and a drama at others. In many ways, Bicentennial Man is hit or miss. Robin Williams and Embeth Davidtz are terrific, but the script itself really has trouble figuring out what movie this is going to be. Still, but there’s enough here to make it worth a viewing, as long as you don’t mind overly sappy movies.

The Story: In the very recent past (2005 – but it was the near future in 1999), the Martin family has gotten a new appliance – a robot named Andrew. And while Andrew obeys the three laws of Robotics, and Andrew (Robin Williams) comes right out of the box with a sense of unexpected wonder. Andrew seems interested in all sorts of things that Robots aren’t normally interested in. In spending time with the youngest daughter, Little Miss (Embeth Davidtz), Andrew learns the meaning of love and humanity. Richard Martin, the father (Sam Neill) is intrigued by this and brings Andrew back to the corporation to talk about his “uniqueness.” The robotics maker is worried that this “bug” will ruin business and wants him terminated immediately. Luckily for Andrew, Richard likes his uniqueness, and decides to spend his time teaching Andrew everything a sentient person needs to know.

Andrew continues to grow and expand his capabilities and thinking. He becomes a master clock maker, and after working out the specifics of getting a bank account, makes millions in selling them. Time hurries on (well, not really – this part could have been edited somewhat) and Andrew’s family grows old and starts to die off. Andrew eventually asks and is granted his freedom, but still hangs around the family, especially Little Miss. He eventually goes in search of others like him, and then later finds ways of “upgrading” his appearance to become human-looking. It is at this point that he meets Little Miss’s grand daughter, Portia. He is captivated by her immediately, and begins to contemplate sharing the love with a human. But in order to do so, he decides he must be “declared” a human – this too will require change.

Is it cyberpunk? I was really torn about whether or not to include Bicentennial Man on this site. It clearly is not a cyberpunk movie in tone, in that the near future is closer to an idyllic situation than a dystopic one. We also don’t see a massive corporation controlling society. In fact, the story isn’t focused on society at all – it’s on an individual. So why include it in a cyberpunk site? Because of the post-human nature of the story Bicentennial Man presents us. Here we see an example of an android as a post-human versus a human transformed into a cyborg. The whole question of sentient androids and their quest for freedom and self-determination is raised and explored, although not to the extent I would have liked. In this Idyllic future, Androids are essentially still considered high-tech kitchen appliances. In its better moments, Bicentennial Man poses the question our society may face one day – when do we grant human rights to the products of our innovation? But again, I do fully appreciate that this move sits more in the gray area than it does as a cyberpunk flick.

What defines humanity? One really wishes Bicentennial Man spent more time elaborating these questions instead of getting mired in a love story. While the love story was interesting and well done in an overly sappy sort of way, it is far less interesting than the question of what would make androids human. Here we have two androids – one clearly nothing more than a kitchen appliance, and the other something significantly more. Andrew has freewill, self-determination, is self-motivated, and clearly seems to “feel” love. Over time, he upgrades his body with the help of robotics tinkerer, Rupert Burns (Oliver Platt) so that he is human in virtually every way (can feel, have sex, etc.). In Bicentennial Man, Andrew pursues being declared “human” versus having human rights. Unfortunately, the movie glosses over how Andrew had the rights to maintain a bank account, own a house on the beach, or even a company. It’s clear that humanity encapsulates quite a few requirements – this movie focuses on our lack of immortality as a defining characteristic of humanity. While this may be true, it’s hardly complete. We are left with the idea that Andrew has all the other (unstated) traits but this one.

The Love Story: Bicentennial Man is a love story, and although it’s sappy, it’s still a complicated one. Andrew was really in love with Little Miss, but neither he nor her (who was also in love with him) were strong enough to admit it. Yet Andrew has another chance when her grand daughter, Portia, is an almost perfect image of Little Miss. Even then Andrew has trouble coming to terms with the possibilities. In the end, Andrew’s potential relationship with Portia represents his last step transforming to human.

The FX: While Andrew’s expressions are well done, clearly lots more could have been undertaken here. Every so often, we get glimpses of futuristic cityscapes, but unfortunately, these appear more tacked on than integrated. Throughout most of the story, which takes place over the course of 200 years, we see no interesting change in society. Literally, the technology doesn’t seem to affect life at all. This really is an almost unforgivable lack of thought and imagination. While there was scene after scene of little love and caring vignettes, futuristic visions were pretty much non-existent here – they could have easily been integrated.

The Bottom Line: There is a number of problems with Bicentennial Man which detracts enjoyment. For starters, Andrew’s uniqueness is essentially magical, as no explanation is ever given. I would have hoped as Andrew became an inventor supreme of human and android cyborg parts, he would have spent time questioning his own existence and attempted to replicate it. Also, the length of time spent on Andrew with his family could probably have been edited down somewhat, and the time spent on the more interesting android questions and their effect on society could have been expanded. Still, there is enough here to make Bicentennial Man worth a watch. Williams and Davidtz have great chemistry and make the sappy love story work. And the questions posed are explored in at least enough detail to make you think.