Sunday 23 February 2014

Eliminators (1986)



Movies like this one always make me question my three-level rating system. Because as much as I enjoyed Eliminators, it is unquestionably a terrible film. The plot is nonsensical, the script hamfisted, the acting wooden when it's not rabidly gnawing the scenery, and the effects laughable.

But it's squarely in "so bad it's great" territory, at least for me, and so I kinda want to give it a qualified recommendation. But well ... see above, so it doesn't get one.

The film opens with swirling intercuts of Roman soldiers and a plane crashing, then we switch to a laboratory where a scientist with Evil Hair and his Asian Lackey are madly twiddling dials and pressing knobs (not a sexual euphemism). They bring back a device of some kind, containing 'the mandroid'. Said mandroid (a cyborg, basically) has a Roman shield with him. The experiment was a success! They have discovered time travel!

Evil Scientist decides the mandroid is excess to requirements now, and orders 'it' destroyed. Asian Lackey doesn't carry through the order though, and eats a bullet for his defiance. As is the way of things, however, he has time to send the mandroid in search of 'Colonel Hunter' before he dies. The Colonel turns out to be Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar from Star Trek The Next Generation), who is working on a recon robot. Said robot looks like a re-purposed kid's toy, and is the best actor in the film.

Anyway: shenanigans! Exploding cars! Redneck bar fights! Denise Crosby swimming for very little narrative reason while braless and wearing a white t-shirt! Secret ninja fishing techniques! One of the goofiest battle sequences ever put to film! This movie has it all. And what's not to love about that?

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