Automatic (1995)

I was a huge fan of Nemisis and this motivated me to rent and watch this flick. It's not bad although it's not a patch on Oliver Gruner's previous great sci-fi action film. The good? John Glover is good as always, a role he will excel at in countless different films and TV shows. Love the gag where the business executive is talking on the videophone about projecting family values unaware that his gorgeous naked teenage hookers are helping themselves to his champagne in the background. Gruner is OK, Daphne Ashbrook is gorgeous as she also was in the Dr Who movie. Love the fake Robocop style advert at the beginning, just playing so blatantly on the fears of middle class America. Must say I didn't see the twist coming at all, it was well played. Lovely ending too, you wonder what will become of these two but it's filled with hope.Overall it lacks the philosophy of Nemisis although it does give it a go, what I really liked about Nemises was how it combined way OTT and imaginative shoot-em-up with touching musings about humanity. The teams of mercenaries hunting the heroes are dreadful clichés, especially the female team leader who is so obviously a ripoff of Vasquez in Aliens. Somehow it all just doesn't hang together as much as it should but for a blatantly low budget sci-fi action flick it does a great deal with what it has to work with. Altogether I'd say it's no Blade Runner but certainly a passable way to spend a couple of hours

For a low-budget action/sci-fi film, this is a really good movie. Of course the acting is rather crappy as you'd expect from Gruener, but the action is good and so are the sci-fi elements. I have seen a few of Gruener's movies and this one is by far his best in my opinion. One thing that really impressed me in this movie were the guns that were used. They had lcd type screens on them that allowed the holder to see around corners - a few years after this movie was made the military looked into actually using a similar system on their rifles.I highly recommend any fan of action/sci-fi movies to rent this one as it is actually better than some of the big-budget action movies these days.

Oliver Grunner stars in this very entertaining movie about cyborgs and the effect they have on a futuristic society. John Glover stars as Goddard Marx, the president of RobGen; an artificial human production company. This IS the future and these things or androids are as common as automobiles and are used for factory labor, security, entertainment and even as sexual surrogate partners. Everything is fine at the company until a RobGen executive tries to savagely rape a female secretary named Nora Rochester (well played by Daphne Ashbrook). Oliver (he plays multiple roles very well in this movie!) interrupts the attack (he IS programmed to protect life, after all!) and in the course of the encounter accidently kills the out of control corporate man. What follows after this is a mad struggle for survival and escape as Goddard Marx calls in a special human merc unit led by a Major West (well played by Jeff Kober). There is lots of good special effects action as well as a few very interesting surprises in the plot. Grunner is always at his acting best and carries the role of J269, etc. well. Add this one to your collections of movies on the science fiction shelf! Good movie!!

Basic Die Hard rip-off action flick with touches of wit and even satire. John Glover as the jolly corporate mogul is great. (Particularly in the first five minutes!) Jeff Kober, as always, has a lot of fun with a small role. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would!