Runaway (1984)

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nTitle: Runaway (1984)

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nDirector/Writer: Michael Crichton

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nCast: Tom Selleck, Cynthia Rhodes, Gene Simmons, KirstienAlley  

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nMichael Crichton was best known for having written JurassicnPark (1993) but few know that he was already a prolific filmmaker/writer longnbefore that. For example, he’d written and directed films like the sci-finwestern mash-up Westworld (1973) and the sci-fi thriller Coma (1978). When wenget down to it, he was more of a writer than he was a director, directing wise,nin my opinion, he never really had a style, you couldn’t tell his films apartnby the direction, rather, you could tell them apart because they had a clevernconcept, an idea with an often times real life scientific explanation behindnthem. However farfetched Jurassic Park might seem, Crichton’s books were based researchnhe made about cloning experiments that went on in the real world. And like thenbest science fiction, Crichton often times tried predicting the future. InnRunaway Crichton imagined a world in which robots are common place in society.nHow did Crichton’s concept play out on film?

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nIn Runaway we meet Jack Ramsay, a police officer whonspecializes in capturing “Runaway” robots that malfunction and start doingncrazy things, like killing people. You see, in this future robots do all sortsnof jobs like cook, clean, take care of the children…and even hard labor likenconstruction work. But when robots malfunction and become dangerous, that’s whennthe Runaway Units comes into play. You see, Runaway Units are these policenofficers that specialize in dealing with these robots gone awry. When a seriesnof robots start going berserk for no apparent reason, Ramsay discovers a plotnto turn robots into killers by installing a special chip on them; can he stopnthe bad guys from achieving their goals?

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nMichael Crichton’s films always dealt with technologynfailing somehow, technology going evil. For example, in Crichton’s Westworld we are presented with the idea of annamusement park that’s made to duplicate the experience of living in the OldnWest, right down to having real cowboys, cantinas, horses and guns. The onlyndifference is that the cowboys are lifelike robots! At one point, one of thenrobots goes rogue and starts killing the guests! As you can probably infer, Westworld wasnactually the precursor to Crichton’s own Jurassic Park, which plays with a similar premise,nbut with dinosaurs. So as you can see, at the center of Crichton’s films therenwas always this idea that technology can’t be trusted; same thing with Runaway,na film in which robots are turned evil by none other than Gene Simmons fromnKISS, who plays the villain named Luther. One look at Simmons’s face in thisnfilm, and it’s obvious he relishes playing bad guys, he’s evil stare says itnall.

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nThe Runaway Division plays out a lot like the premise for BladeRunner (1984), with police officers assigned to stop the rebel robots, onlynCrichton delivers the whole idea in a cheesier fashion, because while Blade Runner uses the premise of chasing evil robots to explore existentialism, Runaway is all about Ramsay conquering his fear of heights, that’s about as deep as this one goes. It’s cheesy because while this movie is supposed to take place in “the future” nothing in this movie looks very futuristic at all; everything looks like its 1984, only with clunky looking robotsndoing things. By the way, the robots in this movie look like the retarded brothers of R2-D2.nEven cheesier is the fact that all these cops have to do is turn off a switchnon the robots? I mean, it kind of makes you think why people can’t do this jobnthemselves? Why do they have to call a cop to do it? But part of the fun ofnwatching this particular movie is how dated technology is, how everyone isnamazed at things that are common place today, like hacking into a computernsystem. At one point Gene Simmons hacks into the police departments cameras andnhe’s like “I bet you’re wondering how I did that?” So yeah, technology isncompletely out dated on this one, which makes it kind of funny.

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nAnd the film is so incredibly 80’s, starting by how the copsnhave cars and uniforms that don’t look futuristic at all, they look like copsnfrom T.J. Hooker or C.H.I.P.S? Anybody remember those cop shows from the 80’s?nSo anyhow, lots of things make Runaway oh so very 80’s, starting by the factnthat Kirstie Alley looks really hot on this movie, so that dates the movie asnwell, this movie was shot well before she turned into the poster girl fornoverweight women; but on this movie? She’s hotter than Georgia Asphalt! There’snthis whole sequence in which Kirstie Alley having to strip in order to locate anbug on her body? So sleazy! Then we have Tom Selleck and his intimidating monsternmoustache which is just like awe inspiringly huge on this film. And then there’snall these nonsensical things that could only happen in a film from the 80’s,nlike this scene in which a robot spider shoots acid on Ramsay’s face and it’snlike, no big deal, he only gets a mild wound when his whole face should havenmelted off? Or when all Gene Simmons’s has to do in order to infiltrate anpolice station is dress like a cop? Doesn’t anybody notice this guy doesn’t worknhere? And he does this to hack the police files! Then, in order to break intonthe computer he uses someone’s eyeball (it’s never explained whose eyeball itnis or how he got it) in order to break the police computers retinal eye scanncode…nobody gives a flying flip that this guy has a detached eyeball in hisnhand!? This movie is hilarious as only a film from the 80’s can be.

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nBut then it’s got some cool things about it, like this wholenchase sequence in which the good guys are chased down a highway by these littlenremote control robots that blow up, that was cool. There’s this whole plot linenabout Gene Simmons selling these black market guns that shoot heat seekingnbullets. When shot, we get these cool bullet POV shots that reminded me ofnsomething Sam Raimi would have done in his Evil Dead movies. Then there’s thisnwhole ending sequence that takes place in a construction site, high up, it’s suchnan extended sequence, goes on forever, but it has some cool vertigo inducingnsequences. At the end of the day, this isn’t the greatest film in the world, butnit’s also kinda entertaining, and I have to admit it has an original premise.nIt just feels like it needed a bit more money to make it a bit more futuristic andna bit less like an 80’s television show.

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nRating: 2 ½ out of 5   

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