Hardware Review
Written by: Suspiria_89
There’s a reason why I usually don’t review a movie after the first viewing. If I would have wrote a review for the movie Hardware right after my first viewing, I would have probably given it a 4/10 rating. But after watching the film a few more times I’ve changed my overall opinion on the movie. Although the movie Hardware is kind of a unorganized mess, I have become quite fond of it. It’s very visionary and has some pretty good special effects.
Plot: Golden Globe winner Dylan McDermott (The Practice, Dark Blue) stars as a post-apocalyptic scavenger who brings home a battered cyborg skull for his metal-sculptor girlfriend. But this steel scrap contains the brain of the M.A.R.K. 13, the military's most ferocious bio-mechancial combat droid. It is cunning, cruel, and knows how to reassemble itself. Tonight, it is reborn...and no flesh shall be spared.
Hardware isn’t really a straight up horror film, it’s more of a science fiction/fantasy film but it does have some horror elements. Hardware is one of the films that’s plot is kind of deceptive. You would think it was kind of a Terminator like film, but actually it’s very different. The first thing I noticed about Hardware is the post-apocalyptic desert setting. The makers of the film did a great job making it look so dead and miserable. Just looking at the red colored sand makes you want to sweat. The next thing that caught my attention is the awesome electronic score by Simon Boswell. The score is very effective and helps give the movie a weird atmosphere. The setting of the film also gives the movie a great atmosphere. The post-apocalyptic city setting looks great and kind of looked like something out of a music video. After reading a plot like that of Hardware’s, I’m expecting to see a high body count and a lot of gore. Well, the body count isn’t very high, but it does have some good gore. We see people cut in half, injected with venom, stabbed and drilled and we see one guy get shot in the head. The acting is pretty good for the most part and script is also good. Hardware also has a very good soundtrack and a pornographic sex scene if your into that sort of thing.
After first watching Hardware I was very disappointed in the movie for mainly one reason. Lack of gore. I don’t mind if a movie isn’t gory, but I had high gore expectations for Hardware since I had heard how graphic the movie was and I read that the movie “shocked the MPAA”. So I thought I was in for one of hell of a ride. But unfortunately I wasn’t. Hardware does have some good gore, but it’s by no means a gore fest. To be honest, I’m not sure why it shocked the MPAA. Another thing I didn’t like was the lack of information. It never tells us how the apocalypse happened. Obviously it was because of a nuclear war, but I was hoping it would tell us why it happened and what year it was. But it doesn’t tell us anything, and at times it seems that Hardware is a mess. I don’t really know why, but it seems like the story is unorganized and seems like you’re just watching random images.
Overall Hardware is a fun and entertaining movie. It’s not anything I would call a masterpiece but it’s a good way to burn ninety minutes. If you haven’t seen Hardware and you’re interested in seeing the movie, I recommend you rent a copy before buying it.