Not a movie you hear mentioned very often, though the few times I do hear it mentioned, the person in question is shitting their pants in happiness over the whole thing... and for the life of me I have no fucking idea why. Personally, not even your's truly heard of it until I came across it at my local dirt rental store (which has sadly passed on since my initial viewing :'[ ). I found a few redeeming qualities to the whole mess, but they weren't many. I was also feeling pretty generous to give this flick a 3 rating. Hey, I've got a soft spot for Pam Grier... and a hard spot if you catch my meaning, heh heh.
As for the title of this movie, since some of you out there in the world wide waste may have stunted vocabularies, allow me to elaborate on the word "vindicator". To understand what the flick is about, we have to break down the title to it's smaller components. First, "vin". "Vin", as we all know, is a common abbreviation of the name "Vinnie", as in "Vinnie Barbarino", John Travolta's character on the '70s sitcom "Welcome Back, Kotter". Now, as for "di", that's Greek I believe for "die", which is why it was no surprise that Princess Di did just that. Finally, we have "cator", which is another word for a caterer, or someone who caters. Therefore, thanx to my expert grasp of the English language and my Sherlock Holmesian sense of deduction, it can be concluded that THE VINDICATOR is actually an episode of "Welcome Back, Kotter", in which John Travolta's character, Vinnie, takes a job as a caterer (or "cator") and ultimately dies as a result, whether it be literal or figuratively... and if you're falling for that, I'm laughing, laughing so hard that my nose begins to bleed and I cough up piece of lung and liver. Of course, we all know what a vindicator is, and for those who don't I'll be a kind Death God and tell you. Vindication is another word of revenge, therefore a vindicator is someone who exacts revenge, whether it be for themself or for someone else. And that boys and girls, is the truth... as much as I'll tell without a court summons anyway.
Our story revolves around an industrious young scientist named Carl Lehman. Carl's not only a man of science but a man who knows how to utilize his sperm to his advantage, as he's also a husband and soon-to-be father. Carl's working on a top secret experiment that involves controlling monkeys' minds and using them as gun wielding Nazi super soldiers to kill men like him, men with bad perms. Well, that's not really what Carl "the Perminator"'s project involves, but there's definitely something to do with chimp brains. Everything seems like it's going fine and dandy for Carl, until one day he falls victim to industrial sabotage! While working late at the lab one night (and doing the Monster Mash), Carl becomes trapped and is killed in an intentional explosion by a man whom he (nor we) are able to see. Movie's over now and we can all go home, right? Wrong. Remember, the title of the movie denotes something to do with somebody getting revenge, so our story is obviously just beginning. Who will be getting revenge for Carl's death? Well, this is a horror/sc-fi movie after all, so of course it will be Carl... See, the job Carl was working on happens to be called "Project: Frankenstein". When Carl bites the dust, his former associates decided to exercise the old "waste not want not" philosophy and salvage what they can of Carl's remains to contribute to the experiment... this is all very illegal of course, so Carl's pregnant wife has no idea. So, now Carl's a new man... literally.
Decked out in a shiny gold spacesuit, Carl is now a robot with a human brain and eyes, and since the project involves mind control, he of course has no control over his actions. But, there's a little flaw with Carl's programming which involves his "fight or flight" response. The damn thing's turned up WAY to high, meaning that he flips out whenever anyone or anything comes into contact with him, which doesn't bode well for the idiot scientists who are supposed to be working on him. Speaking of which, when someone does "threaten" him, ol' Carl goes looney tune and breaks free, escaping the lab in a blind psychotic rage! When our hero falls asleep in a dumpster though, he gets picked up by a garbage truck and winds up dropped into an incinerator. Being a superhuman product of modern technology, Carl walks out unscathed and very lucky, as his Liberace space suit has been torched and he's left to walk around with his tarnished metal ass buck nekkid. If the Terminator or Robocop or any other of his tin-plated brethren seen him in that outfit, he'd never hear the end of it! Now, there's probably at least a few of you reading this who inevitably pose the question, "if these scientists are so smart and shit, then how come they didn't put in a failsafe in case Carl were to go insane or escape!?". Well, not to worry my nit-picking amigos, because there IS a remote control unit in Carl... he just disconnect it. I hope we can all rest a little easier now.
So, with all homoerotic leisure wear and mind altering devices gone, Mecha-Carl's finally ready to do some vindicating damn it! First on the list? Comicbook reading, motorcycle riding Cheech Marin impersonators! Yes, a posse of bikers who all speak with really bad Chicano accents and drive their motorcycles really slow so as to not hurt themselves, happen upon Carl and comment that he looks like the Silver Surfer after getting his ass stomped by the Hulk... okay, this movie gets a couple brownie points with me. Well, Carl takes exception to this unfriendly remark and responds in kind. But, instead of using witty repartee like Spider-Man, he systematically destroys them all, testing the sturdiness of the local concrete with their faces. Needless to say, that's some fine concrete. Meanwhile, the bastard responsible for Carl's current state, Project: Frankenstein leader/funder/muckitty-muck Alex Whyte, hires professional bounty hunter assassin (and Blaxploitation goddess) Pam Grier! Well, here her name is Hunter, but it's Pam Grier! Can one bad ass babe bring in Carl "Tin Man on Steroids" Lehman, the modern day Frankenstein, or will she just become another COFFY stain? Damn I'm so witty... Anyway, Hunter's not alone, as she has her own band of mercenaries under her to command as she sees fit in her pursuit of Mecha-Carl. While all this is going on, Carl's wife Lauren is working with Carl's fat friend Burt in an attempt to go all "Simon & Simon" and figure out where her husband's disappeared to. I'd also like to point out to everyone that fatty Burt is trying to move in on Carl's territory, as any guy who's ever tried to bang his friend's woman will recognize... uhm, not that I've ever done that... I was friends with the girl before I was friends with him anyway, so it's completely different...
Hunter and her squad corner Carl in a length of sewer and it's here you have to realize that for an elite group of manhunters stalking their prey, these guys make a LOT of fucking noise! I make less noise walking across an auditorium floor covered with light bulbs and squeaky toys leading a herd of African elephants! Believe me, I've tried! When the goons do get the drop on FrankenCarl, they hose him down with streams of acid and it seems as if our tragic hero is headed toward, well, more tragedy. Carl proves himself pretty damn resourceful for a glorified toaster though, when he busts out a gas main and a stray power cable, turning the entire city's sewage disposal network into a massive fireball of screaming death. Despite disposing of Hunter's mercs, Carl falls for one of the oldest tricks in the book. When he puts his trust into his old friend Burt, the chubby mofo puts his chips on display and traps the gullible action figure that used to be his friend in a big block of resin. Sure, concrete might sound like a better material to use when trying to hold a killer cyborg in place, but concrete lacks the illuminous and flat out "purdy" elements of resin. Besides, who knows, perhaps the plan isn't to capture and bond Carl, but to turn him into a giant paper weight, door stop or decorative Thanksgiving centerpiece... Not hard to believe, RoboCarl cracks his rock candy prison and escapes during mid-transport as a truck returns him to the lab. As for Burt, Whyte now sends him to kill Lauren for obvious reasons.
Before Burt can do the job he's so lucratively paid for, who should show up but the Vindicator, crushing the bloated sack of shit in his own car. Meanwhile, Lauren's not completely safe, as Hunter sneaks in, kidnaps the wife and sneaks back out like a thief in the night... which she pretty much is... a thief of people... errr... nevermind. Carl knows he's got to go save Lauren now or Hunter and Whyte will kill her. However, he also knows that if he's going to save Lauren, it's likely he'll have to come into contact with her. In order to do this without accidentally crushing her skull or eviscerating her from the crotch, he's gotta purge that whole "touch me and die" glitch in his programming. So, before he can play hero, Mecha-Carl heads to the lab to upload Norton Anti-Virus and *zorch* that little problem. Another confrontation with Hunter ends with her blowing her own brains out while he makes off with Lauren. It's not over yet however, as Whyte brings back the scientists that Carl already killed, resurrected as products of Project: Frankenstein themselves. It's not too likely a single killer cyborg who's already had his ass handed to him repeatedly over the past 84 minutes is going to be able to take down several more just like him. He doesn't have to though, as he's only required to fight one while Lauren manages to shut down the others via their control computer. Whyte is the last to feel vindication, as RoboCarl sacrifices himself to finish off the bad guy. Afterwards, Carl's suit is put on display in the NASA Museum, he's hailed as a hero, and despite all the abuse she was put through Lauren has the baby, he grows into a strapping young lad, and he and mommy go to the museum so she can regale him with the comicbook story of how his daddy died... wish my dad was that cool.
Action, robots, betrayal, revenge, Pam Grier... it all meshes, but not meshes in terms of "it all comes together perfectly", but meshes in the sense of a mesh shirt that those really fruity raver guys wear when they go nightclubbing... ravers, haha, what a buncha prissy fucks they are. The movie's comicbook plot (we're talking cheap comics like the Spider-Man "Clone Saga", not "Watchmen" or "Sandman") was pretty weak, nothing glaringly fantastic in either the story or the acting, hence the only moderate scoring on my part. The FX crew doesn't slack off on their duties though, bringing us an impressive and realistic Mecha-Carl (or at least what I think a Mecha-Carl would look like), worthy of Stan Winston... almost. The only problems I had with Carl were the gold suit and those fucking lips of his. They looked like a duckbill on that thing! I also felt cheated that some of the more anticipated action, like Hunter and her hired guns, ultimately left me wanting more, not because they were so cool and had me foaming at the mouth, but because I just expected some more action. Another part that left me like this was the other Project: Frankenstein cyborgs. Carl gets into it with only one of them, getting his tin ass saved because his wife shuts the others off for him. I had this nagging sense throughout the movie though that there should've been a ninja, an Indian Jones knock-off and a plucky blond female scientist followed by a souped up Mr. Coffee joining Carl at any time, but thankfully I was mistaken...
Final verdict: not bad, not good, just somewhere in the middle. Or, as my friend Twiddle once said, "it's just kinda there, like applesauce".
The Moral of the Story: For all you kids out there who have yet to learn this harsh lesson, take note now: NEVER TRUST THE MAN! THE MAN WILL BEAT YOU DOWN AND DO WHATEVER HE WANTS TO YOU IF IT'LL SUIT HIS NEEDS! Fight the power...
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- Pam Grier plays an assassin who has to take down a killer cyborg? You can't lose!
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Eliminators or
A.P.E.X.
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