| |
T-Force
|
|
| Year: |
1995
|
|
Director: |
Richard Pepin
|
| Stars: |
Jack Scalia, Evan Lurie, Erin Gray, Bobby Johnston, Vernon Wells, Deron McBee, Jennifer McDonald, Martin E. Brooks, Nick DeMauro, Sean Moran
|
| Genre: |
Action, Science Fiction |
| Rating: |
  2 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Jack Scalia is one of those actors who looks much bigger and more impressive on the cover of the DVD than he does on screen. He's actually quite a slight fellow, older looking and with crapper hair than his air-brushed portrait on the sleeve of T-Force suggests. He also sports a fairly strong Brooklyn accent, and is apparently a grizzled cop - also called Jack - who has seen too much. Despite this, he used to date Mayor Pendleton (a still hot looking Erin Gray, once knows as the skin-tight Wilma Deering from Buck Rogers) yet now he lives alone, his only companion his classic car.
The film opens with a terrorist takeover of a high-rise building - led by the ever-camp Vernon Wells of Mad Max 2 and Commando fame - not entirely unlike the opening to Die Hard, only this time they are after 'the Ambassador' played by the wonderfully named Clement von Franckenstein. There is also a shot of Jack jumping off a high ledge as a helicopter screams overhead amidst a large rooftop explosion - again, not unlike Die Hard. In fact very like. The same, that's the best way to put it.
The terrorists are too much for the police to cope with, so the T-Force are despatched (the T is for Terminal, it makes them sound more like baggage handlers) and brutally take out every one of the terrorists, in the process however they blow up a helicopter loaded with hostages as the baddies make a desperate bid for freedom.
A meeting involving various high-ranking city officials concludes that they must destroy the T-Force because you see....T FORCE ARE ROBOTS (although actually they're called Cybernauts. Because suddenly it is revealed that we are in the future, despite the fact nothing else has changed)
Their inventor and 'Father' begs for them to be spared from a hasty dismantling, but is denied. Naturally, T-Force aren't happy about this news and wreak havoc in a series of ripped-off set-pieces, most notably (and understandably) the Terminator series. In fact the police station attack is practically a shot for shot remake at times.
A series of weak action sequences are joined together by some equally weak and increasingly disjointed sequences. Not only do we have a terrible robot-on-robot love sequence ("Can we....procreate?", "I think you'd need to take off your clothes first") but the one 'good' T-Force robot, Cain (Bobby Johnston), who is spared, begins to form a relationship with the robot-hating Jack. They go to bars, they chat to the ladies, and they kick ASS.
The film culminates in a showdown in the wastelands, and there are so many explosions at one point that you wonder just what's going on. Are they hurting anybody? No. Are they doing ANYTHING other than make a lot of noise and light? Not really. Never mind, everyone loves explosions, stick a couple more in.
The effects in this film are obviously not going to be great, but they have attempted a few things. The T-Force Cybernauts show damage by having metal showing through their wounds (looks ok) having their limbs blown off (not ok) or losing all the skin on their hand (happens about eight times, and the robot hand is about twice the size of their normal hand). Not to worry, they have gadgets too, including a light-sabre finger. Seriously.
Anyway, T-Force....it's uhhh....a movie. That's about the best I can say about it.
|
| Reviewer: |
Ted Forsyth
|
| |
|
|
