Dr Daniel (Klaus Kinski) lives on an isolated space station with his android Max (Don Keith Opper), attempting to create the perfect android woman. Then their peace is interrupted by a gang of three fugitives...
Roger Corman's New World company brought out a few science fiction movies, the best one probably being Battle Beyond the Stars, and the worst ones probably being the films that re-used footage from Battle Beyond the Stars. Android is one of the better efforts, both economical and amusing.
In 1982, there were two American science fiction films that pondered how much like a human an android had to be before it was considered human itself; one was Blade Runner, and this was the other one. Android has an ambiguous approach towards its robots: it likes the technology and it likes Max, but it shows the androids developing human characteristics to treacherous, even deadly, effect.
As the no-good humans are shown to have redeeming features, the androids have their dark side. Max is lonely and looking for love, but on the other hand he shoots down a spaceship that threatens his supposed happiness with one of the fugitives (Brie Howard).
Klaus Kinski was born to play mad scientists, and a few more scenes with him wouldn't have gone amiss. There's a nice bit where Max plays James Brown's "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World" while wistfully watching clips from Metropolis. Also with: some stop motion animation at the start, and a surprise ending.
