Here is one of those movies that despite its best efforts fails to really captivate the viewers.
The ideas are quite solid. Dr. Daniel and his quirky assistant, illegally working on a new type of android on a space station. We find out quickly that the assistant, Max, is an android himself, who is trying to find out what it is like to be human. Unfortunately he gets it all just slightly wrong.
When two men, and a woman, escaped prisoners, enter the space station both Max and Dr. Daniel are delighted. Dr. Daniel because he wants to use the woman to complete his latest invention, Max because he's never seen a woman before.
Those ideas could have made for quite a good movie, and it certainly has its moments, but I felt left out for some reason. I think the main problem is that there is no character you can really relate to. Max is endearing enough at first, stumbling through human interactions, and being awkward, but I couldn't really relate to his point of view. The two escaped male prisoners are not likable at all. Brie Howard does her best to give some character to the female prisoner, but her lines in the script are just too bland to work with. Klaus Kinski is quite an enjoyable evil scientist of course, and he obviously made the best out of the mediocre lines he was given. Unfortunately a bad guy only really works when there's actual good guys around. It doesn't really work when there is no one to sympathize with, no one to connect to.
This is an understandable problem when you centre a movie around android characters. When they act human, you don't see them as convincing androids, when they act like robots, you feel detached from them, and can't relate to them as persons. A classic like Blade runner cleverly works around this, by creating androids that act and feel exactly like humans. It can be done the other way round as well, making them far more computer-like, which makes you fear their cold-hearted logic. This movie tries to do something in between, and unfortunately fails to strike the balance right.
This is all too bad, because the movie really had more potential, and I'd love to have seen a movie with the same basic plot, but a better script, and more believable characters. For lack of both, it will be added to the list of films I once saw, but don't need to watch again.
The ideas are quite solid. Dr. Daniel and his quirky assistant, illegally working on a new type of android on a space station. We find out quickly that the assistant, Max, is an android himself, who is trying to find out what it is like to be human. Unfortunately he gets it all just slightly wrong.
When two men, and a woman, escaped prisoners, enter the space station both Max and Dr. Daniel are delighted. Dr. Daniel because he wants to use the woman to complete his latest invention, Max because he's never seen a woman before.
Those ideas could have made for quite a good movie, and it certainly has its moments, but I felt left out for some reason. I think the main problem is that there is no character you can really relate to. Max is endearing enough at first, stumbling through human interactions, and being awkward, but I couldn't really relate to his point of view. The two escaped male prisoners are not likable at all. Brie Howard does her best to give some character to the female prisoner, but her lines in the script are just too bland to work with. Klaus Kinski is quite an enjoyable evil scientist of course, and he obviously made the best out of the mediocre lines he was given. Unfortunately a bad guy only really works when there's actual good guys around. It doesn't really work when there is no one to sympathize with, no one to connect to.
This is an understandable problem when you centre a movie around android characters. When they act human, you don't see them as convincing androids, when they act like robots, you feel detached from them, and can't relate to them as persons. A classic like Blade runner cleverly works around this, by creating androids that act and feel exactly like humans. It can be done the other way round as well, making them far more computer-like, which makes you fear their cold-hearted logic. This movie tries to do something in between, and unfortunately fails to strike the balance right.
This is all too bad, because the movie really had more potential, and I'd love to have seen a movie with the same basic plot, but a better script, and more believable characters. For lack of both, it will be added to the list of films I once saw, but don't need to watch again.