OMEGA DOOM (1996) Worst Rutger Hauer movie ever? Yojimbo has been remade in a whole bunch of genres and scenarios. There was a western (Fistful Of Dollars), a sword and sorcery movie (The Warrior And The Sorceress), Depression-era gangster flick (Last Man Standing), and I'm sure a few more I'm not aware of. Well, now it has been made into a film where everybody's a robot, and about half of them make "Whrrr! Whrrr!" sounds when they walk. These robots come in gangs. One gang, the Roms, are all pale chicks with short black flapper-girl hair, sunglasses, and matching suits. Sort of a goth-yuppie theme to this gang. The other gang, the Droids, are more randomly costumed. They're led by Shannon Whrrry (uh, Whirry), who livens things up during her few scenes. Anyway, Omega Doom is a robot played by Rutger Hauer, who's been reprogrammed by the human resistance to help them take the planet back. We never see any humans in this movie that aren't in flashback, but no worries - all those robots I'm talking about look exactly like humans. Hauer's Steven Seagal-like performance is possessed of the supreme self-confidence that can only come with knowing with absolute certainty that your character will not be so much as scratched by the end of the movie. And yet, at the same time, he looks thoroughly embarrassed to be there. Interesting combination. I liked Whirry, and I liked one of her goons, played by Jahi Zuri as if every movement was very linear and deliberate. Kind of a cheesy android walk, maybe, but at least he's trying to act less like a human and more like a robot. The rest of the cast is a scattered bunch of Albert Pyun semi-regulars, none of whom make an impression at all, not even the guy who plays a robot head which keeps getting separated from the bodies it tries very hard to attach itself to. Leave it to Albert Pyun to give us a Stepin Fetchit character (even saying "Feets don't fail me now!" at one point) in the form of a severed head. Filmed in some bombed-out Slovakian disaster area, which is passed off as the "Old Europe" section of a theme park (!), it looks cheap 'cuz it is. The action scenes are klutzy and the all-too-frequent severed-head scenes have the worst severed-head effects I've ever seen. Lots of slooooooow buildups that don't really build (often accompanied by tough-guy dialogue from Hauer that just sounds tired and homesick) and a thoroughly unremarkable blues and classical guitar score round out the package. The movie is bookended by two voice-overs of Hauer reading some Dylan Thomas poetry, a hilariously out-of-place pretense of artistry in this otherwise showily crappy movie. It could definitely have used some nudity from Whirry. Hey, I like Whirry, and some of my reasons for it are the, uh, right ones, but the only way she (or anyone) could make any progress towards saving a movie like this is with her boobs. BACK TO THE O's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE