I wanted to but couldn't!

Admirable film.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Other than winning the trophy for the longest, drawn out, tensionless standoff in world history, this movie was actually quite dumb...Sorry if that offends your sensibilities, but literally this was the dumbest, supposedly scifi, movie I have seen in my life...and I'm 70 years old, thank you...There is no suspense to speak of, and Selleck definitely meanders through his scenes, like he is waiting for the pain to end...

In the near future, robots are everywhere and malfunctioning robots are called Runaways. Sgt. Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) leads a specialized police squad which handles such incidents. New recruit Karen Thompson (Cynthia Rhodes) is his new partner. As they investigate a robot homicide, Ramsay discovers non-standard circuitry in the robot. They go up against Dr. Charles Luther (Gene Simmons) with his killer spider robots and guided bullets. The investigation leads to Vectrocon where executive secretary Jackie Rogers (Kirstie Alley) is cornered by a robot.It's been over 30 years since I first saw this movie. I remember liking it but not loving it. After seeing it again recently, some new holes appear along with the old remembered holes. First, it makes little sense that city cops would go out into the country to catch agricultural robots. It didn't really occur to me back then. There are some good ideas from Michael Crichton. He tries his best for advanced robots but this movie needed CGI effects. The robots don't scream needing specialized cops. They need mechanics. It would make more sense for a movie like iRobot and that needs a leap in movie effects. This is more or less a cop movie. Selleck is perfectly capable of playing a cop and Gene Simmons has functional menace. That part mostly works. It has some slow sections and Crichton as a director has his limitations. Also, some humor wouldn't hurt. This movie is before its time and falters sometimes due to it.

This movie had all the potential in the world. That being said, the execution was decent at best. The story is interesting enough, but I felt it lacked excitement at times. It can be pretty talky, making it difficult to maintain your interest at times. For the 80's, I was pretty impressed by how the robots looked. I also liked the look of the guns and the special kind of bullets they used. The effects were mighty impressive for the time. Some of them were outdated, but they impressed me for the most part. I didn't mind the explanation, about why the robots were evil, but I would have kinda liked to see them as "pure evil" I felt the explanation detracted a bit from the impact. I did like the tribute to Hitchcock's Vertigo. It was cool to see Selleck suffer from Vertigo. I thought that was pretty nifty. The acting is solid. Tom Selleck comes through like usual. He gives his typical "You behave" style when he's annoyed, but he does it more emphatically. Seriously, he was pretty good. Kirstie Alley isn't in the movie all that much. She was fun in her part though. Cynthia Rhodes is OK as Selleck's partner/love interest. I didn't think she was that special. Joey Cramer is annoying as the kid. Typical for the 80's. Gene Simmons acts with his scowl a lot as the villain. I thought he was OK at best. The finale is pretty exciting. Watching Selleck overcoming his fear of heights was intense. I'm picky with futuristic movies, but Michael Crichton did a relatively good job as the director. If he worked on the pacing and the story a bit more, this could have been a dynamite film. In lieu of that, we get a film that's watchable with flashes of brilliance. It's worth a watch, but that's about it. 5.8/10

People just don't realize how far practical and visual effects have come until they see a movie like this. Tom Select plays a cop who has to hunt down rogue robots with killing tendencies. These 'robots' are nothing more than glorified trash cans on wheels with some pathetic arm or tentacle sticking out. So no terminator-like adversaries. So to compensate they've got Gene Simmons as the bad guy, sure he looks evil/sinister, but that is his normal expression (he's got only one). He's assisted by some very toy like robotic spiders, who 'jump' on people, but in reality they just throw them on the actors who have to hold them to keep from falling of. It don't even want to know how many takes they had to do for every shot coz they must have all be rolling on the floor laughing each time they yelled 'cut'. Easily one of the most cheesy and ridiculous 'scifi' films of the eighties or even of all time.