Gunhed

When we were young, our mothers taught us that if we couldn't say something nice, we shouldn't say anything at all.

With that thought in mind, here are the nice things we can say about Gunhed (aka Ganheddo).

• It's not based on a true story.
• It's not a film about Hollywood or filmmaking.
• Pia Zadora is nowhere to be found.
• In the credits, the words "Based on the novel by Harold Robbins" do not appear.

And hey, what the heck, it's been years since we've lived with our mothers. Here are some not-so-nice things to say about Gunhed.

• Gunhed is murky and monochromatic.
• Gunhed is boring.
• Gunhed is confusing.
• All the action sequences are shot in closeup.
• Live-action giant robot movies just don't work.

Gunhed is a Japanese giant robot movie. We like Japanese giant robot movies. Unfortunately, it's also live action.

There is a really long introduction that explains that the story takes place on an island where a computer, Kyron 5, became sentient and tried to take over the world, so the powers that be sent in a squadron of of cool loking 40 foot tall robots. Years later, a squad of mercenaries whose names all start with the letter 'B' decide to invade the computer's tower to find its valuable computer chips.

Most of them die immediately, killed by some sort of android we never see. The one survivor, named Brooklyn, teams up with a stranded futuristic Texas Ranger looking for a vial that an android stole from Texas.

Eventually Brooklyn find the titular robot, rebuilds it, and goes to fight Kyron 5's giant robot.

Of course, what we described above could make for an interesting movie. Gunhed, on the other hand, is badly edited, boring, and the script never makes a bit of sense.

We viewed ADVision's new dubbed version of the film. Bizarrely, the opening credits have 'Alan Smithee' listed as director. Film buffs know that Alan Smithee is the name directors use when they don't want to be associated with the finished product of their endeavors. Alan's recent output includes David Lynch's Dune, as edited for TV, The Fox network's O. J. Simpson movie from a year ago, and Hellraiser 4: Bloodlines.

With that said, let's not waste any more time, disk space, or bandwidth on this movie.

Move along, people. Nothing to see here.