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nTitle: The Vindicator (1986)
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nDirector: Jean Claude Lord
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nCast: Pam Grier, Maury Chaykin, David McIlwraith, TerinAustin
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nThe Vindicator feels like Robocop’s cheap cyborg clone because so many of the elements seen in The Vindicator popped up again in Paul Verhoeven’s Robocop (1987) that younfeel like somebody read the script for Robocop and liked it so much theyndecided to rush and make their own version of it before Robocop could benreleased. Could it be just pure coincidence that both films are so similar? Inseriously doubt it. The proximity in release date makes me think that onencopied ideas from the other, but who knows how that really went right? If youngot any inside dirt, let me know! But if intuition serves me right, I’d say itnwas The Vindicator doing the rip off here. Now as far as 80’s sci-fi actionnfilms go, how was The Vindicator?
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nStory goes something like this: scientists are designing a cyborgnmeant for space exploration. The lead scientist in this project, a scientistnnamed Carl wants to blow the whistle on a bunch of corporate douche bags whonare stealing money from his funds. So of course, he gets killed for threateningnto blow the whistle. So after they get Carl killed, they decide they want tonuse his body to create the prototype of their space cyborg! Which they do,nunfortunately, because of a bunch of scientific bullshit that I won’t go intonright now, the cyborg cannot control its emotions and simply goes berserknwhenever anyone touches it. Yes my friends, simply touching it will get thisnbad boy to go on a city wide killing spree! Too bad for the evil scientists;nCarl is hungry for revenge!
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nThe Vindicator feels like a mash up between Robocop (1987)nand Darkman (1990) which makes perfect sense to me because both of these moviesndrew inspiration from the old Universal monster movies, mainly Frankensteinn(1931). Did you ever see Robocop as a modern retelling of Frankenstein? I knownI did! I mean, they take a dead guy, bring him to life, he is confused, henfeels rejected by society, by loved ones. These movies deal with becoming ‘a monster’.nIn these movies, the old question pops up: can a monster be loved even thoughnhe is a monster? Same as Darkman and Robocop, this is a monster that used tonhave a loved one before he was wronged, and same as these two movies, thencreature goes back home to try and reconnect with his wife, only to find out shenis now horrified by the way he looks. Asnyou can see, these movies have almost exactly the same plot. In Hollywood that’sncalled a formula, and it’s a formula that The Vindicator follows to a T.
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nIn films such asnthis, you’ll always find the monster looking at themselves in a mirror, or anpuddle of water, and hating what they see, screaming in frustration. Kind ofnhow like Darkman breaks down and cries when he takes a look at his charred handsnand starts screaming “My hands! My hands! They took away my hands!” The filmmakers also recognized theirnconnections to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; by naming the project that thenscientists are working on ‘Project Frankenstein’. And if you know yournFrankenstein films, then you know the monster is always a misunderstood creature,nsociety just wants it dead; which is really what this movie is all about, thenbad guys trying to recover the runaway robot so they can erase their mistake. Itnreminded me of Short Circuit (1986), which also had the same basic premise.
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nThe makeup effects were done by legendary make up effectsnman Stan Winston, this was one of his first films and I’d say that Winston’snmake up effects are the best thing the film has going for it. I mean, ThenVindicator looks fairly cool and there’s this scene where he takes off his masknand we can see a mixture between robot and human that was pretty awesome, Inmean for the time it was made anyways. The big problem for me was that whenevernThe Vindicator walked, he didn’t make any robotic sounds, it was not as cool asnRobocop in that sense. Also, the actor playing the cyborg didn’t move like anrobot, he walked around like a regular human being, again, something thatnRobocop did better. Peter Weller had that robotic walk down flat! In the battlenbetween The Vindicator and Robocop, Robocop comes out the winner because it is simplyna better made film; obviously the talent behind the camera on Robocop wasnsuperior. The Vindicator sadly feels like a television show at times. Thencoolest thing you see The Vindicator doing on this film is lifting and crushingncar with his hands, that’s about as amazing as this film gets. The final fight scene, which involvednThe Vindicator fighting other cyborgs was directed in a very boring, boringnfashion. Final words on The Vindicator: extremely similar to far better filmsnand directed in a very banal fashion. If anything, watch it for seeing StannWinston’s early work.
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nRating: 2 out of 5
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