Product Details

• Actors: Olivier Gruner, Daphne Ashbrook, John Glover, Jeff Kober, Dennis Lipscomb
• Directors: John Murlowski
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Republic Pictures
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1998
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303651941
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,091 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cyborgs, Action, Romance Make for Great Film, August 21, 2000

By	CyberLouis (ALEXANDRIA, VA USA) - See all my reviews

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.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars good movie!, January 9, 2000

By	"kikini" (St Louis, Mo, USA) - See all my reviews

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.

2.0 out of 5 stars Too bad they couldn't pay the electric bill, August 4, 2007

By	James Bond 007 "Movie Collector" (Ft. Worth Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Automatic [Region 2] (DVD)

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.