Robot Revolution |
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USA • 2015 • 85m •
  • Directed by: Andrew Bellware. • Starring: Virginia Logan, Mary Murphy, Matthew Trumbull, Anne Michelle Abbot, Don Arrup, Kate Britton, Kimball Brown, Steve Deighan, Anouk Dutruit, L.A. Maya Graffagna, Paul Hillbish, Annalisa Loeffler, Clark Loeffler. • Music by: Rob Hurry, Wayne Hurry.    In a not-too-distant future where every aspect of society is controlled by machines, terrorism has forced the state to institute martial law. While performing a routine check in a high-rise apartment, a well-armed police officer and her android partner discover that something is causing the buildings' residents to "malfunction," forcing them to fight their way out. However, as they investigate the malfunction further, they uncover a secret that the government would do anything to cover up.
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Review:
As another reviewer mentions, this very meshuggi plot surrounds a somewhat dystopian near-future where martial law (for what its pathetically worth) has been enacted to prevent some sort of semi- organized terrorism. To what end? Apparently to 'hack' the humans (of course), each of whom are all, in Draconian fashion, forced to have implanted ID chips by age 16. A real teenage buzzkill to be sure.
Enter the platinum-blonde eyepatch wearing Constable and her trusty- rusty swagger-droid, Argos, to investigate a tenant building for terrorists. Their escapades include endless traipsing among the very randomly placed drug-vaping tenant population, and one ominous looking robot floor waxer (probably a relic from a DARPA project with Amway?).
Eyepatch and Argos locate the apartment of a nervous-hilaria and discover a (token) magic shiny silver canister - which is of course some sort of weapon. It contains a gaseous cloud of 'nanobots' which, when accidentally released during a lackluster skirmish, seems to interact with folks ID implants, turning them into zombies (although the characters assure us "they are not zombies"...meh).
Now, Eyepatch and Swagger-Bot are forced to fight their way out, with the human-zombie-bots, with the floor cleaner, and maybe a Cuisinart or 2....(one could have wished).
Intermittent with the storyline are random projections of TV snow-like computer static. This has no rhyme or reason. Equally as annoying is the constant looping of the background score which pervades the entire flick. This felt like lazy music production (though the score had its potential, in a Carpenterian sort of way), as did the sound mic'ing and mastering.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge advocate for low budget sci-fi. There have been fantastic and well-thought efforts in this genre. But this one gets lost in oddly placed graphics, which, like any CGI annoyance that doesn't have any function - simply has no believability. Sci-fi crowds are notorious for picking these things out - don't insult them with useless animations.
Now, I get that sometimes chaos is just, well, fun. We've seen this in its best and worst (note the different episodes of the Mad Max yarn). But when it lacks some even semi-recognizable purpose, one can't be expected to connect to the plot, setting, or characters. This is where Robot Revolution unfortunately meanders into the mist...or a confused cloud of nanobots.
Review by pmiddlet from the Internet Movie Database.
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