Customer Reviews

Automatic [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the most underrated movies of our time. Granted it falls into the somewhat overdone genre of cyborg action films, it's still fun to watch.

An automatic is a personal defense unit, part human part machine, which is manufactured to protect its owner and uphold the law. They all talk, look and act the same (like Olivier Gruner). By the way, this is probably Olivier's best film. This role suits him perfectly.

The problem: the company that manufactures automatics is about to have a billion dollar loan recalled unless it comes up with something new. A day before a major press conference, a company supervisor attempts to rape Nora (an employee). In his attempt to protect her, an "Automatic" accidentally kills the supervisor.

To avoid a scandal, the company head hires a hit squad to kill the offending Automatic and Nora. Of course, this Automatic is anything but helpless. Here the action starts and never lets up.

To my suprise, something of a romance develops between Nora and this Automatic who, like the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz, is in search of his heart. To my even greater surprise, the romance part of this story actually works.

With action, romance, great villains and a surprise plot twist, Automatic has become one of my personal favorite films, along with Terminator and Robocop. Enjoy.

Really good movie about a robot who is protecting a woman from a group of mercenaries in a big building. This robot developped a sort of virus who made him feel more like a human. By the way, it's wonderfully played by Olivier Gruner who has this sweet voice (with a little french accent) and a sentimental side of his personnality that nobody else does. Also, his performance is amazing.

Automatic is an excellent film! It has a futuristic plot & a twist at the end. Loved it! Not to mention, Olivier Gruner is so handsome and has a very likeable character. He's very protective. I bought this film as soon as I found it on amazon; too bad it isn't available on DVD, at least not that I could find.
Anyway, I highly recommend it!

The plot, was interesting and a good idea. The details of the characters were a bit too sterotyped and over the top to equal the plot. Some of the behaviors of the characters were so overblown as to be unbelivable. Too bad. If the writters had spent a couple more weeks on the script this could have been a four star movie. As for the acting, Olivier Gruner and his female co-lead were actually quite good, considering their parts. My biggest complaint with the film is that it was shot in half light and shadows for 90% of the movie making it difficult to clearly follow the action. There was no reason for this, if they had shot it in regular lighting it would easily have added another one star to the review. Half the time you couldn't clearly see who was doing what to whom. Couldn't they afford the electric bill? Bottom line, this is a movie that could have been significantly better than it turned out if they had taken a little more time and simply turned the lights on.

True, this is a "dark" film, in terms of lighting, anyway, but for an action/futuristic flick it's original and well done. The fact that the hero is a robot is refreshing since it finally explains why the heroes of action films tend to be monotone and one-dimensional. Pay attention to Jeff Kober and Marjean Holden (Philadelphia Experiment II) in this film, they make it worthwile if you like sleek, sexy bad guys who have more character than the leading man and lady. Rent this film just to check them out together. Makes you curious to know what they got up to in Bolivia. Ding-a-ling-a-ling, darlin'.

A gem of a sci-fi movie.

After watching this movie, I felt a bit cheated. I'm a big fan of Olivier Gruner and I liked him in Nemesis, but Automatic is nowhere near the film that Nemesis is. Yes, Gruner plays the man/machine character very well, but even he can't save this film. I'm not real finicky about film details but this one is definitely not a 4 star film by ANY stretch of the imagination. The film's imagery consisted mainly of closeup shots of prop machine guns going off and sequences of bad guys' hands pulling grenade pins. The film's dialog was about as engaging as it's imagery. Even when playing the man/machine guy in other films, Gruner is still able to add depth and humanness to the character. However, he was not able to achieve this in Automatic. Blame it on poor writing, poor directing, or whatever. I'm still a fan of Olivier Gruner but this film just doesn't have it.

This movie is violently humorous. A must see for any Olivier Gruner fans out there. His accent is standard for foreign action stars, this is a messed up movie that is strangely attractive. Maybe it's that hot girl who is the co-star hehe.