| R.O.T.O.R (1988) Cast:Richard Gesswein, Margaret Trigg, Jayne Smith,Carrol Brandon Baker, Willard The Robot The world is in trouble when ROTOR is unleashed. As it turns out ROTOR is a cyborg policeman who is unleashed way too soon and now it's up to his creators to stop the cyborg policeman...before it's too late. R.O.T.O.R is without a doubt one of the worst movies ever made, however that being said you have to give these guys points for trying. Oh sure their Robocop ripoff is lame beyond belief but to acheive this level of badness takes the work of a master. Meet one of the greatest Guttenbergs of our time. The title itself is enough to warrant a laugh only because it's so direly stupid. ROTOR stands for Robotic Officer Tactical Operations Research Unit, of course one would then say shouldn't it be called ROTORU? But then again logic is one of those things that doesn't apply here. Another aspect of the movie which makes this perfect 3AM fodder is that the hero's gun keeps changing. For instance the hero wields a colt python that is when he shoots it. However when he conceals it, it looks strangely like a B.B gun, The B.B repeaters that sell for say, $19.99. Of course back then it was about $10.99. (I know, I had one) Indeed strangely the ROTOR cop wields the same gun and when he goes into the water the gun mysteriously turns into a B.B repeater. Truly Charles Bronson would be proud. The movie is very poorly put together, with some of the most hideous (yet strangely amusing) synth dominated soundtrack. The soundtrack is of course full of cheeseball ditties such as "Hideaway" and some awful country song played. The actors are all uniformily awful. Especially Jayne Smith who tries hard to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, and even looks like it half the time. Richard Gesswein looks a lot like my Uncle Ron and so seeing this guy turn into a killing machine, put a smile on my face. Also the dialogue is piss-rotten with this witty exchange. To Wit: "Ha, you get to watch, you get to watch me blow her brains out! You going to stop me, all you got is a newspapter!" "I got more then a newspaper and you get to guess what it is!" "No, AHHHHHH!" At this moment the gun shoots a fireball and the guy flies backwards, this would be more convincing if we didn't see him move after the initial killshot. Movies like R.O.T.O.R are great because you get to realize that there are still treasures of bad movies still available. And with this craptactular masterpiece, even The Guttenberg blushes to be given to this. I would love to give this a "NO STARS" rating but I've watched this movie literly 6 times and still love it. What is even more astonishing is that the director actually works on the excellent Simpsons TV show. I'm still waiting for a parody of this...D.Cullen Blaine |
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