Death Machine (1994) — Triskaidekafiles

DEATH MACHINE

WRITER: Steven Norrington

DIRECTOR: Steven Norrington

STARRING: Brad Dourif as Jack Dante

Ely Pouget as Hayden Cale

QUICK CUT: An overgrown manchild leaves his toys all over the place, getting in everyone’s way.

THE MORGUE

Jack Dante - A top class hacker and mechanical engineer, who is into toys, childish things, and being a general nuisance.

Hayden Cale - A new executive at Chank Industries, who is into cleaning the place up. She has very little time for bullshit.

Sam Raimi - Director of Evil D…no wait. An ecoterrorist with a plan, and is just trying to do what’s right and save lives.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Well, this is some major whiplash. We survived the super short, very pointless, aggressively annoying Buttcrack, and now here we are with...Death Machine. A somewhat serious, science fiction heist movie, with an actual cast and budget. And clocks in at OVER TWO HOURS. This is, no joke, quite possibly the longest movie I've looked at, save for an anthology or two. But at least those are a bunch of separate stories stacked up in a trenchcoat. So, we have a lot to deal with here, let’s get into this.

The movie opens up in an unspecified "near future" at a service station. Burning, wrecked cars are strewn about, there's a standoff with the cops, and then a buncha guys dressed all in black sporting goods equipment they must've gotten cheap at wholesale show up.

What they find inside is something they describe as "the ultimate soldier" and it's just some dude in an exosuit and hooked up to shit that apparently makes the wearers eventually go nuts, and punch holes in walls until the're no longer a problem.

I’m here to punch walls and kick some ass, and I’m all out of wall!

Duke Flukem glitches out, and collapses to the floor, showing that this "ultimate soldier" has a bit of a design flaw, if you ask me. This will be later confirmed.

The goon squad packs up the corpse, makes sure the local authority understands nothing happened here, and they go about their day.

After a bit of local news of the story leaking out, that was fast, we move to the Chank Corporation, the makers of the mandrone, and the controversy over their various programs. The newest executive, Hayden Cale, is making their way through the crowd, and they drip in a bit more flavour of the shenanigans Chank has been up to.

Cale wants all these questionable projects shelved, and the man behind the "Hard Man" project, Jack Dante, fired. But, he's too valuable to the tech company, and so he's going nowhere.

She heads down into the bowels of the building to meet the man, and he is a squirrely, twitchy, unfriendly, misanthrope...hey, it's Brad Dourif!

Cale gets bored of his messing around and threats, and leaves, so that was productive...

Meanwhile, there's a group of guys plotting a heist, named Weyland, Yutani, and Raimi. Ah, I see what you did there. In fact, there is a LOT of names of famous directors and references throughout this movie. It was the mid 90s, self referential meta stuff was coming into fashion.

Back at Chank, Cale learns more about Dante from his personnel file, and swipes the keycard of Scott Ridley, so she can sneak into "Vault 10" and see what the big bad projects are. Oh, is it gonna be Wolverine? That sounds like a Wolverine kinda place.

He’s up to a seven pack a single smoke habit.

While she's researching, Dante shows up, and he offers a partnership; his knowledge and her access, to cause much damage.

You know, I make fun of this character for dressing like an emo teen, being a pervert teen, playing with toys, but I gotta say...they absolutely 100% nailed the reclusive hacker of the 90s. This is totally the sort of guy going on Twitter nowadays to blow Elon Musk.

He rambles a bit, shows off that he recognises her from some old skin mag she did photos for way back in college. You know, that old gag.

Cale threatens him with a gun and Dante backs down, when she shows him how serious she is about putting a bullet in him.

Go ahead and shoot, I got a hundred Good Guy dolls own in my basement lair.

With her whacking the hornet's nest of Dante, other board members Ridley and Carpenter know they need to do something about her. Ridley is fine with the extreme more murdery options, but Carpenter says he'll be there soon to discuss less stabby options.

Dante shows up out of nowhere like he's Batman to chat with Ridley, and show off his new toy, a controller for an incoming killbot! It remains nice and not murdery, as long as Dante holds down a dead man switch. Oop, and his finger just came off it.

The killbot shows up...hmm, there has to be a better name for this machine. This machine of...death. Ah, I'll think of something.

ANYways, the killbot shows up, Ridley runs for his life, and we get a LONG chase with some added POV shots of the killbot going all terminator on him.

Wait come back! I loved you in Game of Thrones! I just want an autograph!

With Ridley's death, Cale is now in charge, and is busy updating all the systems to grant her access, when Dante once again noses in. Also, she takes the opportunity to fire him.

He does not take this well.

To the point that he is ready to shoot Cale in the face, but fortunately for her, the trio show up to break into the vaults. Dante realises he's outgunned and surrenders, being taken with the two executvies to be tied up.

Dude, what do you think this is? A Matrix movie?

Jack instantly turns on the corporation, and offers his help to the crooks, offering them a better way into the vault...or does he? He instead leads them to Vault 10, with the promise they can cut through it to the main vault, much quicker.

Back in the main area, an alarm starts going off that Vault 10 has been breached, and Cale warns the goon left behind to watch her, that it contains some kind of...death machine. Hey, now THAT is a catchy name!

The others get in the vault, and gasp surprise, Dante sics the Death Machine on the other two. Weyland tries to pull a Jaws. Instead ends up being the one blowed up when the killboy explodes a gas canister on him.

The surviving goons decide to cut and run, and agree to let the two execs tag along, since they're united in being murder targets.

Everyone makes their way to a service elevator, along the way learning the goons actually are not armed, and all their guns are loaded with blanks. Which gives Carpenter the incentive to take charge.

The death machine smashes into the elevator, chaos ensues, and there are much injuries. Carpenter most notably gets bitten good, and dragged out of the elevator once they shake off the monster.

Since down isn't much of an option, they take the remains of the elevator all the way up, and find yet another secret vault. This one being where the "Hard Man" project is being stored.

Cale is more than happy to help the thieves out, and send all this info of this awful project out to the networks, the only problem is the Death Machine between here and the front door.

So, Raimi volunteers to suit up and use the Hard Man project against the killbot, hopefully not sacrificing himself in the process.

Say hello to my not little at all friend!

While Raimi runs interference with the Death Machine, and the others get armed up, Dante shows up and shoots Yutani so he can have a private chat with Cale.

She uses the opportunity to aggravate him, and steal his explosives, so they can blow up the entire core of the computer system.

Fortunately, they catch up with Raimi, while the Death Machine chases after them. Unfortunately, it shows up and stomps on Raimi, knocking him out of commission for a few minutes.

The other two empty an absolutely ridiculous amount of bullets into the robot. Raimi knocks it over, and gets into a bit of Mike Tyson's Punch Out so the other two can make their way to safety.

Yutani fires even more bullets into the robot's face, while the others run. He tries to follow, but forgets to duck, clanging his head on the low clearance of the door. As he lays on the floor dazed, the Death Machine approaches and tickles him to death.

Cale and Raimi rocket down the side of the building in a supply cart or something. Once they reach bottom, Cale reinstalls Raimi's original brain, overriding the Hard Man programming, before it can cause his brain to crash.

They head back inside the building, to rig up their bombs, but not before some hapless cop shows up because of all the commotion. And this poor guy, with no idea what's been going on, just showing up to do his job, gets flattened by two tons of plummeting Death Machine.

Seriously, why is this movie two hours long? This should have ended forever ago. We just keep running from one location to the next, any of which could have been the boss level.

Anyways, they race through the ridiculous security doors with the Death Machine hot on their heels, hoping to get through all these things before it eats them.

They use a few explosives along the way, and Raimi gets caught in the blast from one of them. Cale is ready to give up at that point, inches from her goal, and succumbs to the impending spinning blades of death.

Which is when Dante wanders back into the plot, stopping the Death Machine for the moment. They get in a fight, Raimi isn't quite dead, and Cale eventually gets the controller device from Jack.

They leave him in the core with the explosives and the Death Machine, sealing the door behind them, and letting everything go boom.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks really good. It has that dull grey look of mid 90s scifi, but the picture is sharp, and it’s almost too good looking.

Audio: Pretty decent, with a solid mix, and use of effects.

Sound Bite: “Holy donuts!”

Body Count: About an average amount for this kind of movie. Nothing too noteworthy, but it doesn’t leave you wanting.

1 - Five minutes in and Cameron glitches out.

2 - Ridley gets murdered by the deathbot.

3 - Weyland gets blown up,

4 - Carpenter falls to his death.

5 - Yutani gets fingered to death

6 - Some poor cop gets squished

7 - Dante gets blowed up

Best Corpse: Carpenter getting chewed up and spat out is pretty good. I also like the poor cop getting squashed randomly, just because it’s so ridiculous.

Blood Type - B: There’s not a lot of blood or effects, but it’s used effectively, and the robot’s pretty good.

Sex Appeal: Nothing of note.

Drink Up! Every time Dante’s mood shifts on a dime.

Movie Review: Well, you already know I think this movie is too long. But, even so, I DO broadly like it. It’s got some tone issues, it tries to be serious social commentary while being a bit camp and silly, and it really needed to lean more into the camp. It was made in that period of the 90s when things were a bit darker, and that does this movie no favours. And there are TOO many plots going on. If this had been tightened up to 90 minutes, mmmaybe 100, it would be a lean mean Death Machine. No surprise, the highlight is Brad Dourif. He’s always fun playing unhinged, and watching him swing wildly between moods is a delight. Cale doesn’t quite give as good as she gets, but the various other corporate baddies are good foils for Dante, and a bunch of familiar faces. My biggest issue here is that it’s low energy for being such a big, long, movie. Three out of five action figures.

Entertainment Value: Dourif is worth the price of admission almost every single time, and this is no exception. Every scene is a blast. The heist is weirdly fun, even if it is a plot too many. And watching Raimi ham it up once he’s reprogrammed with military killbot brain, is a lot of fun. Three out of five keycards.