It’s only a paper moon (12/20/01)
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Omega Doom. [Albert Pyun, 1997.]
When a stray bullet whistles off his braincase during one of the last battles of the Third World War, pops everything from his execution stack, and reboots him into the open source Free Will OS, synthetic Samurai Rutger Hauer goes Ronin, and proceeds to wander the Earth, or what’s left of it, in a long overcoat to keep out the chill of the nuclear winter, sword on his back, in search of truth, justice, enlightenment, adventure, a bowl of rice, or maybe just someplace to recharge his batteries [not that it’s never really clear what these guys are running on.]
Arriving presently at a picturesquely bombed-out town [all rubble and graffiti, one of those charming low-budget locations in Yugoslavia where they lost the last three or four wars], he discovers it divided between two warring gangs of androids — one lit blue who wear shades, the other lit red who do not — and is seized by the whim to intervene in their dispute; though whether or not he is, really, intent on playing one gang off against the other by repeatedly switching sides is never clear because this is, alas, a Pyun film, and therefore it is impossible to tell what, if anything, is going on, since the characters occupy themselves not by exchanging meaningful dialogue, or even shooting at one another, much, but rather with striking poses which are meant to convey Attitude.
Thus though it is, at least, obvious that this is supposed to be
Yojimbo for androids, nothing else makes sense: the scenes have no connection, the shots don’t match, nothing in particular happens, and the coda for reasons known only to the B-movie gods comes from Dylan Thomas. [I think I was supposed to be sad because Shannon Whirry bought it, but whatever sorrow I might have felt was erased by my confusion regarding why she was getting iced.] — When robots sidle up to the bar, they seem to drink water, but otherwise feel pain, ambition, embarrassment, jealousy, etc., and appear to be subject to varieties of Angst; Hauer repeats the mule speech [though not about a mule] and lights a cigar before riding off into the sunset [though he doesn’t ride], but there are no mistakes about coffins; android’s bodies lie rusting in the streets where they fall, and are indeed occasionally reappropriated by stray heads, to what is supposed to be comic effect. — Well, go figure. — If I had Rutger Hauer and Shannon Whirry, I’d have made a film noir, but somehow this happened instead.
____________Inside the bubble (12/7/01)
