Millennium / R.O.T.O.R.

This review is for the Blu-Ray edition of Millennium/R.O.T.O.R released by the Scream Factory in 2016.The quality of the two movies are quite different. I find it hard to believe that these two movies were released together.Millennium is a pretty good science fiction movie. If you like time travel movies then you might enjoy this. R.O.T.O.R. is probably the worst science fiction movie from the 80's or later that I have ever seen. It's definitely "so bad, it's good". There are simply no words to describe how bad this movie is. You just have to see it to understand.FOR STARTERS: I'd like to say that I would gladly pay top dollar and/or full price for any version of R.O.T.O.R., no matter how bad the print is, if it has a commentary track by somebody who participated in the making of this movie.ALSO VERY IMPORTANT NOTE IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN A TRAILER OF MILLENNIUM: I strongly suggest not watching the trailer or reading what 'Millennium' is about before watching it. You will immediately know what the big mystery of the movie is if you do so. I was fortunate enough to have not seen the trailer before the movie. If I had done so, it would have ruined the movie for me.BLU-RAY & EXTRA'S: The quality is just average. There doesn't seem to be much done to prints. The pictures are pretty clean as you would expect from movies released in the late 80's. Just don't expect a super sharp picture and vivid colors. The extra's are minimal. You get subtitles and trailers. In addition you get an alternate ending to Millennium.*****WARNING - LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT*****PLOT/SUMMARY: MILLENNIUM: This one is tough to give a summary for because the review can end up being one big spoiler...The movie opens with two planes colliding in mid air. When the voice recorder is recovered, it is discovered to have a mysterious message. One of the pilots had gone to the rear of the plane while it was going down and came back in yelling that the passengers were all dead. Was he delirious or was it something else?Bill Smith (Kris Kristofferson) is a NTSB investigator who is in charge of this collision. While piecing together the downed plane he discovers an unusual device that stuns him. Also during the investigation he meets Louise (Cheryl Ladd) who is an employee of the airline. Smith immediately falls for Louise despite the fact that she behaves in a very unusual way. After spending the night with her in his hotel room, she suddenly disappears.To say anything more would be giving away the movie, so I'll stop right here. R.O.T.O.R.: You know you are in trouble with this one from the get go. The radio tells you that there is lots of traffic and the highway they show is sparsely populated. A couple is out on the highway travelling to a vacation destination when they hear an explosion and come across a bloodied man (our hero, Coldyron) hovering over a dead woman. He tells the driver of the car to call the police and some other dude pops out of the woods holding a rifle to Coldyron saying he watched him just killed a cop. The driver says he'll go call. He has a primitive cell phone and calls after he just got done telling us it was great to have no phone on him. The police arrive and handcuff Coldyron then tell him to buckle up?!? We learn that Coldyron is a police officer who also is in charge of robotics research. He says up until two days ago everything was great. The movie should have ended right here. We already know the end and it could have saved a lot of wasted time and misery.Anyway, Coldyron, begins his story....It start's out like every other morning for Coldyron. He wakes up and gives his horse a cup of coffee... not kidding. Coldyron goes to his office where we meet the team, which includes one of the worst looking robots ever seen in a science fiction movie. The local senator, Buglar, wants the project done in 60 days even though Coldyron tells him it will take years. Buglar threatens to fire him and he tells Buglar "You fire me and I'll make more noise than two skeletons making love in a tin coffin!". So what does Coldyron do?... he quits!! Naturally there is an accident in the lab and R.O.T.O.R. comes to life. R.O.T.O.R. is without a doubt, one of the most inept villains in history. He repeatedly gets fooled by a hysterical woman, named Sonya, for the rest of the movie. You see, Sonya and her husband are pulled over by R.O.T.O.R. for speeding. Since Coldyron and his team brilliantly decided to make R.O.T.O.R.'s prime directive, "To Judge And Execute" (it's also inscribed on the motorcycle), that is exactly what he intends to do. Is it just me or shouldn't it be "judge and execute or release"? I don't see any reason to 'judge' if you are just going to execute. Am I right? Anyway, despite the fact that R.O.T.O.R. will not be ready for years, he has a locker filled with gear and his name tag affixed on it. He has a motorcycle in the garage. For some ungodly reason, there are chairs set up in rows in the garage. They were most likely put there with the intention of making R.O.T.O.R. look mean by having him toss them aside. Instead, he trips, stumbles and bumbles his way through them to the door. As he is doing this, just think of one of the top quotes from this movie... "It would walk through a bus full of nuns to get to a jaywalker!"Getting back to the scene where R.O.T.O.R. pulls over Sonya and her husband... R.O.T.O.R. promptly kills Sonya's husband. Sonya 'accidentally' hits the horn. The sound of the horn completely incapacitates R.O.T.O.R. Sonya quickly drives away but then comes up with the brilliant idea of pulling over in order to talk things over! This after R.O.T.O.R. just put a bullet in her husband's head! R.O.T.O.R. approaches and she decides to speed off. They spend the next 12+ hours playing cat and mouse. Sonya runs away, waits for R.O.T.O.R. to catch up, runs around screaming and getting people killed and then takes off again. Somehow, Coldyron and Sonya always seems to know where each other is and how to get in touch. Coldyron, the hero that he is, tells Sonya to just keep running till he figures out how to stop R.O.T.O.R. You'd figure that Sonya would just go somewhere and lock a door or run to a police station. It's not like R.O.T.O.R. has super powers and could tear down a locked door.While hunting for R.O.T.O.R., among other things, Coldyron, stops a convenience store robbery. This after he asks a driver for change, doesn't get any, then walks to a newspaper vending machine with a handful of change! He calls Steele, our lesbian, blue and gray haired, body building, super genius, scientist to fly to Texas to help out. Coldyron and Steele have an almost indecipherable conversation that just has to be heard to be appreciated. A mechanic at a service station gets up from under a car and runs away screaming "feet, don't fail me now" after witnessing the stupendously frightening sight of a person (R.O.T.O.R.) holding jumper cables... I'll have to remember to run away screaming like a madman next time I see somebody with jumper cables.In a climax scene that just has to be seen to be believed (take my word for it, it is impossible to explain how incredibly bad this scene is), R.O.T.O.R. is finally stopped by the combined brain power of Steele, Sonya and Coldyron. At the lake, while Coldyron is trying to figure out how to stop R.O.T.O.R., it looks as if R.O.T.O.R. and Steele are choreographing their battle in the background. We have Coldyron lassoing R.O.T.O.R. from 4 completely different directions. This after he actually lays a small lasso on the ground with the hopes that R.O.T.O.R. will be dumb enough to stick his foot in it! Then we see R.O.T.O.R. walk up to it, look at it, then manages to get caught in it! Previous to this, Sonya jumps in a rowboat with no paddles???, then forgets to untie the rowboat!!! So she sits there and waits for the inept R.O.T.O.R. to accost her yet again. More and more dumb stuff along with incoherent dialogue ensues until finally R.O.T.O.R. gets blown to pieces. Finally, we are back to where the movie started... except for the fact that things are now completely different than how the movie started. Ahhh... the wonders of low budget movies and not having enough money to finish the movie.After Coldyron finishes his story, he walks outside and is murdered. THE END... well not quite... we have our set up scene for the sequel!... as if THAT will ever be made.COMMENTS: MILLENNIUM:-I saw Millennium when I was younger and thought it was excellent. Revisiting it today, I still think it's a good movie but it is somewhat dated.-I think that 'Millennium' has a very interesting premise. The time travel sequences are quite interesting but I don't love how time paradox's are handled.-The buildup was good and when I first watched this movie, I had not seen a trailer and had no idea what the movie was about. This made the movie a lot better in my eyes than it would have been had I seen the trailer before watching. Having no idea what was going on, made the movie infinitely more interesting. If I had known what was happening to the passengers before hand, it would have ruined the movie.-The ending was poor and not well thought out. I have no idea if the story on which it is based on handles things differently. There is an alternate ending and I'm not sure why it wasn't used. It's essentially the same ending with a few seconds added on.-If Louise was allowed to leave, why couldn't everyone else leave? Why not just take a chance and go since you are about to die anyway.-I'm not sure as to how they could destroy the time period they are in and go to a future one. Wouldn't that be destroyed too? Kind of like if you killed your father in the past, you would also be gone?-Why exactly would Sherman the Robot say there is no place for him in the future? Why was there a place for him in his current time? This made no sense. I guess they were just trying to add some drama.-Exactly how would Sherman know that Louise would have a kid in the future especially in light of the fact that should was barren? R.O.T.O.R.:-It's hard to imagine how this movie ever got made. When I first started watching this movie I had no idea about it's reputation for being awful. I had never heard of it. For awhile it was greatly disappointing. As the movie just kept getting worse, I began to realize that it was "one of those" movies. Then I began to enjoy it's horridness.-This movie is supposed to be a rip off of 'The Terminator' and 'Robocop.' It's actually more 'Robocop' and 'Judge Dredd. Kind of like if they had a kid and it was evil.-R.O.T.O.R.'s kryptonite is a car horn. This has to be the most pathetic weakness since a bucket of water defeated the Wicked Witch of the West.-R.O.T.O.R. is supposed to stand for 'Robotic Officer Tactical Operational Research.' He has an unusual power that was programmed into him. He can remove his shades and see the past... seriously... that is some programming...-The movie starts with an evening scene but when the return to that scene after the flashback it is in the middle of the day and the characters are different. There is nobody around to witness the cop being killed even though he wasn't really killed by Coldyron.-In the diner, Sonya exits her car, enters through the back entrance and ultimately leaves through the front entrance to get to her car. OK... I guess I should just quit with the continuity errors. Really there are just way to many to mention.-Do people in Texas attack cops whenever they see one for no reason? This was certainly the case with R.O.T.O.R. Just about every time somebody saw him they attacked despite the fact that they had no idea that he was a baddie.-I found myself rewinding the movie just to listen to the dialogue. It is impossible to figure out what they were thinking.-You just have to see the fight seen in the diner. You just can't make this stuff up. I doubt this will ever be duplicated.-ROTOR is a movie just screaming for a commentary track by director, actors, etc... or just anybody who was actually there for the filming.****END OF SPOILERS****PRODUCTION: MILLENNIUM:-This movie was made in 1989.-Millennium has two fairly popular 80's stars in Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd. Ladd's best days were behind her at this point after starring in 'Charlie's Angels'. R.O.T.O.R.:-The acting is as bad as it gets. It gives 80's porn a run for it's money for horrible acting.-This movie was made in 1988 and released by Orion Pictures.-The casting is stupendously bad. Coldyron doesn't look anything like a scientist and wait until you see the girl he is working with.-Editing? Was this even done? The continuity errors are blatantly obvious and there are too many to even count.-The writing is so bad that it's almost pure genius. Half the time you don't even know what they are talking about. I'm surprised that this movie is not quoted more often. It's got more memorable quotes than 'Casablanca.' The writing reminds me of that famous quote...you know the one that ends with... baffle them with bull#$%@...-The music is just plain awful along with everything else and for whatever reason, most of the actors are dubbed... and as you would expect... very badly dubbed!-Plot?... just review my comments above...CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS: Simply put, if you have never seen these movies and you don't mind getting a terrible second movie then go ahead and purchase it. Millennium is a good movie. If you are a fan of movies that are "so bad, it's good" then you might enjoy R.O.T.O.R. Be prepared, it's just plain awful. That said, it's awfulness is pretty entertaining.Recommended for fans of time travel movies and movies that are 'so bad, it's good.'

The R.O.T.O.R. video gives fans of the movie what we've been waiting for: a crisp, clear, undamaged, and wonderfully watchable transfer of this So-Bad-It's-Good film. No more suffering through dreadful pan-and-scan Mill Creek Entertainment DVD's or iffy VHS bootlegs. This is the REAL DEAL and it looks great.It has the alternate "BLUE STEEL" title card in place of the normal "R.O.T.O.R." screen but the remainder of the movie seems to be unchanged. I found the sound quality to be a little tinny and flat, but given the film's bargain-basement production values, this is probably a reflection of a poor-quality original rather than the Blu-ray.The only reasons I give the Blu-ray 4 stars rather than 5 is (a) the dearth of special features and (b) the fact that the movie is split into only 8 chapters, and the screenshots in Chapter Selection menu don't perfectly correspond with each starting point, making it hard to find the scene you want.Oh yeah, the movie? You have to love truly bad cinema to appreciate this one.The movie is not really a straight-up ripoff of Robocop as is often parroted online—it's more of a low-budget Judge Dredd with a dash of The Terminator thrown in—and it's not as boring as some other infamous sci-fi trash, but that's about all the good that can be said about it. Most of the acting is wooden. Much of the dialogue is badly looped, for historically unclear reasons, given that it's an American production (presumably) shot in English. The script is so verbose that it verges on being nearly incomprehensible in places. The comedy-relief robot character is inane and not funny. The first half of the movie proceeds at a snail's pace, and when the action finally picks up in the second half, we're treated to some of the worst fight choreography since 'Dolemite'. The premise has holes large enough to drive a truck through. (The robot won't be ready for 25 years, but he can be activated by a badly-placed pair of headphones, and he already has a locker. a uniform, and a motorcycle?) The movie has more continuity errors than a Jean Claude Van Damme film has roundhouse kicks.So why even bother?If you love a film that's so bad you can make fun of it non-stop, this one is *great*.