Shockwave, dir. Jim Wynorski (2006)

STEVE says:
Jim Wynorski is credited with directing Shockwave (or A.I. Assault, as it's also known) on the IMDb page. But on the disc we watched, credit goes to "Jay Andrews". This begs the question, "How bad does a movie have to be for Wynorski to use a pseudonym?"

In the opening scene, two army guys and two scientist types are running away from a giant spider-like robot. So we're off to a good start. The male scientist trips, lets out a girly scream, and is incinerated by the robot. Meanwhile, the army guys are shooting at the thing. And shooting. And shooting. I counted no less than 86 shots fired at this thing (with no time wasted on reloading) before the Major shouts, "Bullets don't work, try grenades!" and the second army guys heaves a grenade at the thing, which - shock! - does nothing. So he shoots at it again! Thirty-four times! Maybe he thought he used too many bullets last time. Realizing - or perhaps remembering - that bullets don't work, this clown lobs two more grenades at it, and wastes another 14 bullets before being decapitated by the thing.

And so on.

For nearly 90 minutes.

That's how bad.

The "star power" here consisted of Michael Dorn, Bill Mumy, George Takei, Alexandra Paul, Robert Picardo and Tim Thomerson, if that tells you anything about the level of quality. To be honest, I only watched Shockwave because Thomerson was in it, but he was tragically underused, his screen time limited to only three or four scenes.

This one doesn't deserve much of a rating, even on a MSTie level, but I'm giving it 1.5 out of 5 - and that's only for Thomerson.


NIKKI says:
I really wanted to go to bed. It was 2am, we'd just watched two not-great movies -- and now we were going to watch Shockwave, with Tim Thomerson, about Navy Seals fighting intelligent robots somewhere in the Pacific? All I kept thinking as it started: it's only 90 minutes, it's only 90 minutes. And, believe me, I watched that clock like a hawk.

But we were committed. Icon sent the store a screener with three "horror" movies on: Thr3e, 30 Days of Night, and this one. We decided to watch all the movies, just for fun. It's always fun before we start. Fifteen minutes into Thr3e and we actually shut it off, only to go back to it because we can't help ourselves. It's like we're addicted to lame horror. We wouldn't do it for any other genre. But horror -- we feast on crap, on purpose. I think we both need help.

So, guess what? Shockwave was lame! But fun, weirdly, because it so knew it was lame. Case in point: Robert Picardo, at one stage, emerges from a makeshift wheelchair with blue neon tubes stuck to his head.

Steve's jibes about the toy-looking spaceships, the guns, and Joe Lando's resemblance to Clive Owen made the time pass way quicker.

1.5 out of 5 -- and I think that's being really nice.