Hardware

This is a very cool little sci-fi flick. OK, it's no Aliens, but it has a lot of really interesting things happening. First off it has a slick look, filmed very well by first time director/writer Richard Stanley, a lot of strobes and brilliant colour give it a perfect setting for the `robot goes crazy' plot. I also liked the post-apocalyptic landscape, which I think worked well along with Iggy Pop's narration as `Angry Bob'. It takes a little while to build, but the ending packs a decent punch, along with just enough gratuitous violence to keep me happy. There are also plenty of religious references and imagery to look for, all centering around the `MARK 13 Cyborg.' So, if you like sci-fi, I think you should give this movie a try, it's a pretty cool ride with some very cool imagery.

Those judging Hardware using the same criteria for judging major Hollywood sci-fi films are missing the point entirely.

Hardware is much more an art film than it is science fiction; it merely happens to have a sci-fi theme.

Given, the plot is a little cheesy. Given, the situation fairly unbelievable. And given, there are a few holes in the story.

Almost no film has all of these elements, but Hardware has something even more important. The way the story is told is nothing short of genius. Perhaps not in the way the happenings actually unfold, but in how they are presented. Hardware is an astounding achievement in lighting, cinematography, and audio engineering. As a professional video editor myself, I can assure you that this movie benefits from an A+ editing job.

I completely agree that there are only 2 types of people: those who love Hardware, and those who simply do not get it.

From the first frame of video, this movie is a constant barrage on the eyes, ears, and mind. If nothing else, you must admire the bleak vision of a post-nuclear holocaust America presented in Hardware. Images ranging from billowing smoke stacks and butchers in apartment lobbies to toddlers physically tied to their dead parents, Stanley paints a haunting vision of the future that will not be forgotten after you press stop.

Hardware is not what you would expect to come out of Hollywood. It is what you would expect a pure artist to create. Perhaps it is better suited to fans of independent film than just sci-fi fans. Films like Terminator and Aliens might be regarded as much better sci-fi work, but I assure you that they can't touch the riskiness and edginess of Hardware in how they are presented. That is why you hear casual moviegoers complaining about this movie. For pure fans of the art behind film making, sci-fi just doesn't get any better than Hardware.

It should be noted that the excellent score does much to augment the visuals in this film. It's criminal that nobody has seen it necessary to print Hardware on DVD as I would love to experience it in Dolby 5.1.

As a final note, Hardware may not be a film everyone will enjoy. Even if you don't like it, you will become a more enlightened viewer if you can at least identify why this is such a courageous film and how it differs from the Hollywood fodder you are probably used to.

First off, let's get my bias out the way, I'm a die-hard fan of this movie, and this review is definitely intended to get the reader to give it a chance.

The film is riddled with industrial (music) culture references and cameos, and if you're into that scene, there's a certain sick thrill about seeing Carl McCoy as the zone trooper, and seeing footage of proto-industrial performance artist Monte Cazazza in this. The general tone and ambiance of the whole piece of wonderfully clichéd cyberpunk.

And that's really the interesting thing about this film. While there are a plethora of terrible sci-fi slasher flicks out there desperately claiming the 'cyberpunk' moniker, here is a film that claims to be nothing more than a sci-fi slasher flick, and manages to be somewhat of a pulp-cyberpunk classic instead.

The whole movie is a mood piece, designed more for its ambiance and the feel of its world, than particularly flashy action sequences or on-screen 'wow' factor. It's meant to be a genre movie, but it manages to feel like a 'serious' film under the influence of some heavy drugs. Not a bad thing really, but your tastes may disagree. Personally I've always liked that sunset-filtered-through pollution look that Bladerunner was infamous for, and hardware utilizes the same rather well.

Genre movie it may be, but it shows far less cheese coating and terrible acting than any of the current glut of genre movies being produced for the Sci-Fi channel. In fact the whole movie feels more like a good pulpy cyberpunk novella than a genre movie by far. Calling the movie 'mood music for rivetheads' isn't really an insult to it.

I saw this movie in the theater the week it opened way back when. It was a very, very late showing, and there were approximately five other people in the theater. Two walked out during the film. As the film credits rolled, the two women sitting next to us said, "My god! That was the worst film I have ever seen!" My only thoughts were, "They have not seen Starcrash!"

Both my friend and I loved Hardware. I introduced my SO to it this weekend, and he loved it. I think what I like about it is that it's a small movie that manages to execute its space perfectly. The universe of Hardware is dark, dirty, claustrophobic (without being small). The narrative is pure dystopia, which fits very well with the droid gone wild theme. The droid is so unrelenting, as is the dreariness of existence in this post apocalyptic space. I like how tight the movie is. I also like how clean the narrative is. There isn't any extraneous fluff.

I think this movie will appeal to the slightly more sophisticated film lover. It doesn't have big movie pretensions. Hollywood did not destroy this movie. The symbolism is far more subtle than in big productions. The pacing is also different. I loved the slow buildup.

This movie worked, but it's not an easy movie. If you're willing to work a little with a movie that doesn't have the big movie facade of Terminator II or Independence Day, and you enjoy dystopic science fiction, I think you will like this one.

Hardware is a quintessential cult film. Project of a young, troublesome director that was soon to vanish from the movie-making horizon. An ambitious but low budget science fiction that taps into a particular zeitgeist. An overwrought, philosophical flick that is fascinating even if it fails to deliver any real thrills.

Based on a short 2000 AD comic strip Shock!, Hardware is low on narrative content but it exploits its post-apocalyptic setting with a confidence and fidelity. Stanley manages to work around the budget restraints and turns all London based, indoor locations into a believably devastated landscape of a civilization in retreat. Flesh is consumed by overwhelming rusting metal and slowly decays amidst the ubiquitous pollution. It's a bleak even if not entirely original vision that here is pushed to the limit of being almost unpleasantly nihilistic.

Together with work of cyberpunk literature- Gibson's Neuromancer and some defining achievements of Japanese animé like Otomo's Akira (1988) and Fukutomi's Battle Angel Alita (1993) Stanley's film is a product of its times- anxious about the state of the environment and our place in the technological civilization on the threshold of the new millennium. It perhaps couldn't be made with the same infectious desperation pouring out of the screen at any other time in the history.

What it also shares with defining it literate and cinematic contexts is the same tendency towards gratuitous symbolism. Religious connotations (both Christian and Buddhist) between characters of Moses Baxter and deadly M.A.R.K.-13 are at times heavy handed but rewarding in the scale of the whole because of the consistency with which they are used and, at times, their detailed intricacy.

Exactly because philosophical rather than the narrative layer of Hardware comes to dominate the entire feature, Stanley's film becomes so dense, impenetrable and therefore intriguing. Film's colour palette, dominated by oligochromatic browns and reds adds to the overwhelming sense of endangerment even if the script, time and time again postpones the actual danger and fails to build up any tension. Added, voyeuristic sub-plot is appropriately disturbing and intense but serves little dramatic purpose.

Film delivers gore and sex, as expected but it's nowhere near as captivating or resonant as the overarching art style. In the last third, Stanley without any moderation delivers hypnotic and grotesque imagery that leaves the viewer confused but with a dominant sense of being a witness to a wonderful and bedazzling vision.

Verdict: Hardware is best approached not as it was advertised- a sci-fi action movie but rather a complex mantra; film of unified stylistic and philosophical vision that comes close to encapsulating both entertaining and intellectual properties of a masterful sci-fi. It is too aware of its real intentions too be fully appreciated by the mainstream audience but nevertheless remains a work of an intriguing and skillful director. If you fall for its depressing tone and appreciate cyberpunk influenced issues that it tackles you might find yourself coming back to it several times, despite its shortcomings.