Runaway (1984 film)
A 1984 film starring Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons. It was written and directed by Michael Crichton
In the near future, when robots become commonplace, Sgt. Jack Ramsey (Selleck) handles cases involving malfunctioning robots.He gets involved in the schemes of a twisted genius named Dr. Charles Luther (Simmons), resulting in a cat and mouse game with such weapons as guided bullets, rolling bombs and acid squirting robotic spiders.
This film contains examples of:
- AI Is a Crapshoot: Averted - there is no AI, just machines doing what they are programmed to do, or malfunctioning because somebody didn't do what they were supposed to do.
- Chase Scene: A fairly memorable one - Luther attacks a police convoy with roving smart bombs by dropping them from a trapdoor in his car, so the heroes can't even see where he's attacking them from.
- Death By Genre Savviness: Luther - he knows all the angles except the one Ramsey makes a living on; any system can fail. Ramsey thus kills him by feeding him to his own killbots.
- Dueling Movies: With one of the biggest actors at the time and written/directed by a science-fiction legend, this film was projected to be the major sci-fi film of 1984. Instead, it got overshadowed by a B-movie about a robot assassin played by an Austrian bodybuilder who barely spoke English, co-starring alongside actors who only had theater experience, and written/directed by an unknown (whose last film credit was Piranha II).
- Homing Projectile: the infrared homing rounds.
- Made of Explodium: Luther's creations.
- No OSHA Compliance: The skyscraper construction site. Justified because only robots are meant to be there.
- Painfully Slow Projectile: The homing bullets of Luther's gun.
- Pistol Pose: Used on the posters and video covers.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes: Ramsey is scared of heights. Knowing this, Luther sets the exhange in the climax to happen in an unfinished skyscraper.