Intro: I eat movies like this up. It’s post apocalyptic, Orwellian and has a killer robot. I’m happy to say that Hardware delivers. It’s visually stunning.

We start off in a barren wasteland, something you might see if you were on mars, everything is a rich orange/red hue. A scavenger walks along the desert seeking supplies and comes across a robot.

The Barren Wastland

In comes Mo (Dylan McDermott). Mo and his friend Shades, who wears sunglasses, are walking through a trashed out city. You see, Mo just got back home as he’s been gone awhile. His first order of business is to hit up the local metal pawn shop. It is here he encounters the scavenger. One thing leads to another and Mo buys the robot. Now, when I call it a robot, I mean it’s actually in several pieces doing its best C3PO impression. The owner of the shop seems to think that the robot is just a maintenance drone. That doesn’t sound like it would make for a very interesting movie though, does it?

A walk through the city

Mo decides to give the parts to his girlfriend Jill (Stacey Travis). One, she’s a metal craftsman and two, he’s been out of her life for so long, he knows he’s going to get laid if he brings her something. Jill is agoraphobic and doesn’t get out much. She keeps herself protected from the world behind hydraulic doors. As the two lovers get it on, we see a rather large and fat man spying on them from another building. It was rather creepy to hear him talk and children’s shoes lined his wall. The robots eyes begin to glow. It’s basically a show for anyone who wants to watch.

As the story progresses various news casts can be heard throughout the movie. Emergency Population Control. Sterilization Centers. It’s obvious this world is in a lot of trouble. We never really find out what has happened but given the year the movie was made, I’ll bet it has something to do with the O-Zone.

Bands like Motorhead and Ministry can be found here. It’s a rather excellent soundtrack. Not something I was expecting for a movie in 1990. Odd they had GWAR in a video but Ministry playing. The music seems genuine to the overall theme of metal. Sadly, it is a rather short soundtrack. Iggy Pop is also in the movie but I’ll be honest, I’m not sure who he was playing.

A political debate ensues between the couple. Population control. Radioactive kids. They trade barbs with one another. Something all couples do after sex.

We begin to learn more about the robot aka the Mark 13, pretty generic name. Turns out, it’s a war robot. Not a maintenance drone.

We see our hero reading the bible, a passage from Mark 13. However, I was unable to locate this exact quote… I suppose the movie took some creative liberties with the bible. The passage was rather fitting.

Jill is seen naked and the fat man calls her over the video phone. All you can see is his eye peeking through a porno mag. He wants to put a string of popcorn in her butt and do the Hershey highway. He would appear to be a serial killer or at least a sexual predator.

So, not only do we have a robot to worry about we have David Berkowitz with a pony tail.

She quickly tells the fat man where to go. The robot comes alive. She’s done a great welding job. Painting the American flag on the face was a nice touch.

Very patriotic

Our hero goes to meet up with a metal trader he met earlier. He left pieces of the robot behind… which promptly kills the man.

Once Mo realizes the robot is going after Jill, he calls his friend Shades up… who would appear to be on a rather potent drug. Knowing this, Mo still sends Shades to help.

We return to the apartment as Jill narrowly escapes the crushing arm of the robot while sitting up in bed. She gets out her blow torch to kick some ass. The scene is eerily reminiscent of Alien. Alarm going off, fire in hand, rustic and dark scenery. She opens the door to leave and boom, there’s the fat man. He waltz inside… yeah, we know where this is going. Turns out the voyeuristic fat man installed the security for all the apartments and for some reason, the doors emergency lock has been engaged. He begins to sing a song he’s made up, the Wilbulry Wobbly Walk… I shit you not… thankfully, the robot kills him before he is allowed an encore. Not a very gruesome death but his eyes are removed. That’s what he gets for spying, I guess.

Jill holes up in the fridge for safety since she’s somehow figured out the robot sees in infrared. Jill and the robot get into a bit of a fight and we get to see the whole robot. It’s a rather lackluster looking robot.

She does manager to blow up half her apartment, taking out the robot… or so we think. There’s still a lot of time left but perhaps we are going to be treated to an epic ending similar to the one we saw in Return of the King. For the record, it put me to sleep.

After blowing the place up, the lights seem to work again. The door opens and we see her walk towards Mo, robot in toe, of course. Jill ducks and Mo, Shades and a couple of extra cast members blow the damn thing away. But wait… there’s still time left.

But we got backup now, or as I like to call them, extra bodies.

We find out the robot is part of the population control during another lovely conversation between the two. And bam, there’s the robot again. Mark 13 pulls her out of the apartment. She hangs on to a power line high above the city… the robot cuts it and Jill is flung into the apartment windows below. Jill appears to be dead. Lifeless, eyes open.

“You can’t fuck with Mo.” Our hero says as he, once again, shoots the robot. The robot was able to inject drugs into Mo though, the drugs allow the injected user to feel calm and accept their fate. We see a pretty amazing trip out with the robot conducting some type of symphony as music plays in the background.

The Symphony

Mo begins to cut his wrists and the scene flashes with a close-up on the eye, a short flash of the blood stream… bugs begin to come out of his wounds and Mo is in full trip mode now. And it’s pretty damn cool scene. Honestly, I think Aronofsky saw this scene and gave homage to it in Requiem for a Dream. Aronofsky perfected the art.

Anyways, it turns out Jill is alive and she’s going to take care of the robot with a bat. Yup, a bat. Everyone is telling her not to go into the apartment again… but here’s a tip, when you tell someone not to go, don’t follow them. You could be the first one to die. That is the case here. The hydraulic doors quickly shut and splice one of the men in half… she trys pulling him out but only manages to get half of the job done. Nice death scene.

The robot is now equipped with a chainsaw and begins to slice up a dead body. Not sure why, perhaps he missed his calling to be a butcher? I think it was Mo but they never really show a face.

She starts chatting with her boyfriend over a computer, a scene that really confused me. It almost seemed as if the robot was taking on the personalities of the people it was killing. And we are treated to the Wilbulry Wobbly Walk again. Sigh. We don’t learn much but we do know the robot is defective. Good to know. Jill knows the answer to stopping it thankfully, and leads the Mark 13 into a shower. But before she can put her plan into action, Jill is thrown through more glass. It’s a bad day for Jill but good for window repair men.

Now you may have forgotten that Shades was there with everyone. He shoots the thing right in the head as they turn the water on in the shower. It shorts the thing right out.

I wasn’t sure until the end but Mo actually expired.

Dead silence