Wonderful character development!

Let's be realistic.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Rugged sergeant Jack Ramsay (a fine and engaging performance by Tom Selleck) takes care of defective robots whenever they go dangerously awry. Ramsay and his eager new partner Thompson (an appealingly perky portrayal by Cynthia Rhodes) under a nefarious plot by evil genius Charles Luther (deliciously played with lip-smacking wicked relish by Gene Simmons) to use a bunch of microchips that can make robots go lethally haywire.Writer/director Michael Crichton offers a fairly accurate prediction of a future where everything is heavily automated, keeps the enjoyable and engrossing story moving along at a snappy pace, takes a few barbed satiric potshots at the pesky sensational scoop hungry media, and stages the exciting action set pieces with skill and flair. Moreover, Crichton presents Ramsay as a flawed, yet still sympathetic character. Selleck and Rhodes display a really nice and likable chemistry in the lead roles; they receive sturdy support from Kirstie Alley as Luther's snippy and sultry girlfriend Jackie, Stan Shaw as seasoned forensics expert Marvin, G.W. Bailey as a gruff police chief, Joey Cramer as Ramsay's adorable son Bobby, and Chris Mulkey as paranoid engineer Johnson. The robot spiders Luther uses to bump off his opponents are pretty damn cool. Both John A. Alonzo's slick widescreen cinematography and Jerry Goldsmith's stirring electronic score further enhance the overall sound quality of this nifty little film.

Never once had I ever heard of this surprisingly bad effort from Jurassic Park's Michael Crichton. In 31 years, this "futuristic" thriller escaped me until the brilliant How Did This Get Made? podcast covered it, which means I had to watch it just to listen to their show. And finally, they got back to their roots of doing incredibly bad movies to ridicule and put the pieces somewhat together for an hour and a half. Funny enough, though, this movie had one unbelievable good point that is worth mentioning: Tom Selleck.While most of the movie was downright hilarious (the wonderfully unintentional kind,) Selleck actually looked like he was in an Oscar film throughout. His lines, delivery, acting, reactions and the way he stole every scene was actually very good. It just felt so odd when you had poor acting, a worse script, a laugh-out-loud Gene Simmons villain – who I always thought was an android since he was so plastic and a million "robots" in people's homes that malfunctioned more than contributed, to have Selleck give his all. For him, he raised this dud to 2 stars, just 1 more from the deserved rating.But, skipping him, which isn't easy to do, it's a ton of fun to watch this train wreck of "suspense/almost horror." Now, I can't wait to hear the cast of the podcast tear this apart.

People just don't realize how far practical and visual effects have come until they see a movie like this. Tom Select plays a cop who has to hunt down rogue robots with killing tendencies. These 'robots' are nothing more than glorified trash cans on wheels with some pathetic arm or tentacle sticking out. So no terminator-like adversaries. So to compensate they've got Gene Simmons as the bad guy, sure he looks evil/sinister, but that is his normal expression (he's got only one). He's assisted by some very toy like robotic spiders, who 'jump' on people, but in reality they just throw them on the actors who have to hold them to keep from falling of. It don't even want to know how many takes they had to do for every shot coz they must have all be rolling on the floor laughing each time they yelled 'cut'. Easily one of the most cheesy and ridiculous 'scifi' films of the eighties or even of all time.

In the near future, a police officer specialises in malfunctioning robots. When a robot turns out to have been programmed to kill, he begins to uncover a homicidal plot to create killer robots..magnum P.I, turns all sci-fi in this really easy to like, and also really easy to hate, from the great cinema year that was 1984.The thing is, I was sold by this movie, the minute I saw the poster, and because I am fanatical about all things eighties, it did exactly what I expected.It's way outdated, and most sci-fi movies that were set in the future, made in the eighties, are all out dated now, but hey ho, you can't win them all.Selleck is as good as always in these types of film, and it's great to see Magnum drop the F-bomb, as you can tell that he relishes saying it.Simmons is okay as the villain, but as always, gives away too much exposition come the final showdown.Storywise, it's nothing to write home about, someone wants to be greedy and won't let anyone in their way blah blah blah, but when you have a gun that fires heat seeking bullets, and have robotic spiders that spit acid, plot doesn't really matter.The film will infuriate some, but those who love the retro style of eighties sci-fi, will lap this up.