Date of release: December 14, 1984
Written and Directed by: Michael Crichton - Yeah the guy who wrote Jurassic Park, and other stuff. (Just kidding, he's great.)
Starring:
Tom Selleck as Sgt. Jack Ramsay - The Magnum years.
Cynthia Rhodes as Jack's new partner and is known for being in a shitload of dance movies and music videos. Think Xanadu, that shitty sequel to Saturday Night Fever, Flash Dance and Dirty Dancing. You get the idea.
Gene Simmons as the bad acting bad guy Dr. Charles Luther. Later on when I found out he was the bassist for Kiss, their choice to wear makeup when they perform TOTALLY makes sense. Just compare a picture of Gene wearing the makeup on stage and not wearing the makeup off stage and you'll get the idea.
Kirstie Alley as Luther's ex-lover Jackie with the pretty eyes. One of her pre-Cheers roles. She always sounds like she needs a cough drop.
And - G. W. Bailey as the go-to-guy to portray a high ranking police officer in anything. Just look up the Police Academy series and that TV show The Closer. If there is ever a role to be typecast in, then playing a cop is it. It's guaranteed work!
This is one of those films that belongs in the pantheon of movies that I watched repetitively as a kid and never seemed to get tired of. Then as I entered Jr. High, other distractions like girls, sports and being in tune with what was at the time 'cool' replaced my weekend routine of popping in a VHS tape and plugging into the 'Video Head Zone'.
I was able to get some clips on YouTube to refresh my memory, and like a faint smell or riff of an old song from back in the day, all that I remembered of this film resurfaced like a bad habit.
In brief the story takes place in the near future where society has been integrated with robots. Our main hero is police Sargent Ramsay (Selleck) who's a single father and works in a special branch of the police department that handles robotic affairs. Ramsey has recently been partnered up with the bright and energetic Karen (Rhodes). Early on we are treated to a domestic disturbance where a service robot has taken a family hostage. After defusing the problem Ramsay notes that the robot was programed with some kind of new chip that will basically bypass one of the main laws of robotics that deters robots from becoming harmful to humans. Although there is no reference to it in this film these laws were created by Isaac Asimov.
Later on we find that the main antagonist is legendary rocker Gene Simmons who is not only a mad robotics expert that terrorises people with his evil mass produced microchips and acid injecting mechanical spiders, but is also ugly as hell without the demon make-up.
The script plays like your basic cop thriller. You've got the veteran cop who has to balance being a single parent, breaking in a new partner and possible love interest, a job where he is constantly at odds with the sceptics in his department and the growing obsession with taking down an unpredictable psychopathic villain.
Some notable scenes include an extraction of an exploding bullet from Officer Karen's arm. A sort-of car chase where Ramsay, Karen and Kirstie's character have to swap cars while in motion in order to escape a set of tracking missiles that look like RUMBAs hunting them along a busy street. And not 1 but 2 hostage exchange scenes that end badly for at least one person involved. We also get to see what its like from the point of view of the tracking missile bullet; kind of like seeing the swimmers panic from the sharks point of view in Jaws.
The acting isn't that bad but you do have to take into consideration the 'historical context' or when the film was shot to not be too harsh when judging the films look and feel of the future. Like most Sci-fi films there will be a lot of over estimated predictions of man's integration with robots in society and ridiculous or cheaply conceived technology (usually this stems from the films budget). Not to mention the case of the director or props manager creating nonsensical or useless shit that even in the context of the story, the "it" thing, whatever it may be is really impractical and could have easily been cut out of the film along with characters that are introduced early on and then never mentioned again.
Runaway definitely had potential, especially for the time since it was written by Mr. Crichton himself. It could have easily been another rehash of Westworld but he tweaked it and went in another direction. Unfortunately for Runaway it was released at the ass-end of a year filled with other Sci-Fi gems that, for the most part, have all established cult status.
Some of these include:
Dreamscape
Repo Man
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
2010: The Year We Make Contact
Dune
Nineteen Eighty-four
The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension
Starman
The Philadelphia Experiment
The Last Starfighter
The one film that really erased Runaway from most audiences memories was the monolith that came out earlier that October called The Terminator. Yeah that one. Lets face it, pretty much all of these I have mentioned were eclipsed once James Cameron unleashed his Sci-fi/action movie, industry game changer. Cyborgs, time travel, an uncertain future or maybe a countdown to the apocalypse... Sorry Runaway you had no chance.
VHZ final review: ***Check it out
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