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Runaway (1984) More at IMDbPro »

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7 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Gloriously stupid, but also entertaining, 27 May 2005

Author: MovieAddict2009 from UK

This film was listed in my television guide one night and it failed to mention what it was about, who starred in it, nor who directed it. If I had known all of the above ahead of time, I surely would have made sure to see the entire film; instead, I happened to turn it on after twenty minutes had already been aired. I saw Tom Selleck (an actor I've always enjoyed watching) and thought, "What is this?!" I looked it up on IMDb and when I saw Michael Crichton had directed it, I couldn't believe it.

First of all, I'd never heard of it, but that's beside the point - this movie is awesome! In a bad way, sure, but nevertheless awesome! It's got Gene Simmons as a villain for goodness sake, what more can you ask for? This is so cheesy and bad that it wouldn't earn a newbie director a passing grade in film school. Crichton, however, has such confidence in his outrageous material (small acid-spewing robots being used to take over the world) that it comes across as totally entertaining. From beginning (almost) to end I was kept amused by the film and never felt like it was too slow or anything.

Don't get me wrong. This is an awful film. But it makes no attempt to be a great epic or anything; the ending is so far-fetched, ridiculous and clichéd you can't help but love it! A classic of bad '80s movies to be cherished eternally.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
OK, if unspectacular science fiction action thriller, 13 February 2009

Author: t-birkhead from United Kingdom

I had been vaguely interested in seeing this film for a while before I got down to it, for the prospect of a film directed by Michael Crighton (RIP), starring Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons and featuring evil spider robots was very inviting to me. It is pretty fun, but never reaches the heights it could do. Selleck plays a cop who suffers from vertigo and has the job of diffusing robots that have gone astray. His job mostly involves stopping runaway farming robots or misfiring security drones, but unfortunately someone has got a hold of micro chips that can make robots turn evil. So, Selleck and his partner, ably played by Cynthia Rhodes get on the case and find themselves up against a malign Gene Simmons. Selleck can do this sort of thing in his sleep and is effortlessly convincing, whilst Simmons plays a bad guy pretty well. Sadly the film is underwritten and has a few plot holes as well as lacking any real sense of emergency. The effects are pretty nice mid 80's stuff and the robots are well made, especially the spider robots that are a tad underused, apart from the cool finale. There are some good action sequences and the film has a swell pace, but somehow its just never that impressive. It sorely needed more violence, more intensity, or at the very least better writing, with the scenes dealing with Selleck's home life absolutely horrible. There isn't much in the way of characterisation, but Crighton does at least handle the action well and there are at least two decent set pieces. Altogether, this is worth a look for robot movie buffs or 80's nostalgia fans and its easygoing good fun, but definitely no classic.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
The Incredible Mo's adventures in space, 17 June 2007

Author: tenthousandtattoos from Australia

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I was actually looking for another Tom Selleck movie, An Innocent Man, but could only find this in my local video-store bargain bin. Saw it as a kid and thought hey, why not...Gene Simmons, some killer robots...should be good! Now, I like "bad" movies...especially cheesy 80's stuff, but even I gotta draw a line somewhere. This one was just too "bad" even for me. See it for a laugh at just how cheap some SPFX got before the days when CGI can make anything look "nice" and "clean". See it for examples of truly atrocious dialogue and 8th-grade drama class acting. See it for...well, thats about it really.

Silently screamed or out-loud laughed in several places.

1) First kick was when Selleck goes into the house to track down the malfunctioning vacuum cleaner armed with a knife (no wait, it found a gun!) and just before he goes in he puts on his "electromagnetic deflection suit" or something...puh-leeeze. He may as well have shouted triumphantly, "Never fear! I'm wearing my electromagentic deflector suit!" Never mind it looks like the costume guys hit the scuba store for a shark-mesh-body-suit, then hopped across to sporting goods for a baseball catcher's vest and some soccer shin-guards. Then the props guys needed a gun so they went to the funny shop and got one of those ray guns that makes the synthesizer sounds and lights up when you press the button, plus a fake moustache for Tom (hang on...that was REAL??!!) 2) The little "killer" robots look like something my 6 year old nephew would make with his meccano set.

3) Shouted at the screen: why don't you just kick the stupid little robots before they try to squirt you with their little turkey basters full of acid? (which mind you must be CITRIC acid or something because when good ol' Tommy Selleck gets it in the face it just seems to turn his cheeks a bit red) 4) laughed out loud at the final scene where Tommy's getting it on with his partner under a shower of sparks (i guess the sparks were symbolic, i cant remember any arc welders nearby) and the way he touches her nose while kissing her...yikes, yikes, yikes...that could NOT be more cheesy if it tried.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
The Scarecrow reviews "Runaway", 14 August 2006

Author: Scarecrow-88 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

In the future, robotics has become an important part of society fulfilling roles once operated by humans. Housekeeping robots, agricultural robots, etc. Well, robotics has become such an important aspect in life that a special crimes division is specially directed at "robot crimes"..such as malfunctions amongst the most serious threat. Tom Selleck portrays Sgt Jack Ramsey, once a beat cop who decided to step away from that role when his problem with vertigo leads to a killer getting away and killing a family not long after. He began studying the field of robotics as he explains to his new female partner, Karen Thompson(Cynthia Rhodes), and found that he above every one else in the understanding of such a field. Thompson gets an idea of the rather mundane part of the role when a agricultural robot goes berserk messing up a crop. But, she also sees the ugly side as Ramsey has to upend a robot which has killed members of David Johnson's(Chris Mulkey)family. This sequence is stellar and we see how good Ramsey is at disarming difficult situations. It also shows how those who try to get in without understanding Ramsey's methods(a television cameraman who makes a bad decision to follow Ramsey)will perish. Once Ramsey looks inside the robot, it is found that a smart chip was planted to force the robot to turn maniacal. That man is Dr. Charles Luther(Gene Simmons who is very good as a sadistic, vile human being who pierces you with his bulging, obsessed eyes)who wishes to sell his technology of creating killing robots, designed to be terrorist toys. He had maneuvered Johnson and another doctor(who we see killed by a robotic spider)to create these smart chips with the capability to force robots to coordinate and destroy selected targets. Luther has this unique gun he uses which fires a heat seeking missile. It is used to kill Johnson when Ramsey and Karen try to apprehend him. Luther's lover, Jackie(Kirstie Alley)is caught in a room with specific computer parts needed to put together the whole terror-sell operation. Jackie is caught, unfortunately, by a robot which has flipped it's lid. The robot isn't deadly and can only shoot electric bolts which knock you down or annoyingly shock you. After Ramsey is able to successfully(though not without a few bolts which threw him for a loop)stop the renegade robot, he finds lots of computer property in Jackie's possession. They are successfully able to get information on where Luther is(in a meeting with some clientèle), but Ramsey isn't able to get him for he has that gun hidden in his coat and a "floater" robot which blows smoke throughout the room. This time Karen is hit by a missile dislodged in her arm intact. In a harrowing sequence, Ramsey must remove it without hardly any movement..Karen will have to undergo serious agony without moving her arm. The rest of the film consists of Luther and Ramsey playing cat-and-mouse as Jackie's life is now in danger after revealing her information. Not only that, but Luther is also able to find and kidnap Ramsey's son(yes, the old kidnapping cop's son bit). The film shows Luther's cunning with computers and how he has eyes open at all times. The film's true tension derives from that very fact. I've read countless reviews for this film and none provides any enthusiasm towards "Runaway." I don't see what the real problem is. I thought it was well paced, with some interesting little robotic creations, the cast seems game..it's perfect for a lazy Summer afternoon.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
A special cop for a special job., 25 January 2003
Author: Michael O'Keefe from Muskogee OK

Michael Crichton writes and directs this Sci-Fi tale of a futuristic cop Jack Ramsey(Tom Selleck)defending a city from hay wire robots. In '84 this was pretty cool, but watching it again twenty years later is like walking into an antique store. The F/X are fine even if the story is a little dated now. The finale tracking down villainous killer(Gene Simmons)is still exciting. Cynthia Rhodes plays Ramsey's partner and love interest. Also in the cast are:G.W. Bailey, Stan Shaw and Kirstie Alley at her finest. Selleck tries hard to not seem awkward.

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When Xerox machines attack, 21 November 2009

Author: T Y from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

The only way to enjoy this movie is as an unintentional comedy, or as a drinking game. It concerns itself with the hopelessly nonthreatening gadgets of a madman, some of which turn out to be better actors than the stars, and the plot & script clearly never had anyones attention.

None of the mechanical threats are designed to look even remotely like they could accomplish the things the plot asks of them, without a twenty-nerd-crew hovering just out of view. The feeble 'bugs' are so poorly designed, they can't even be shown moving an inch on a smooth surface; so it's bewildering that the plot has them climbing walls, crawling up peoples bodies, mounting construction elevator towers (!) etc. A hostage situation reveals a klunky "household robot" designed to do nothing more complex than... hold a gun! A dangerous, exploding robot (later) has the firepower of, perhaps 4 sparklers. A gun with bullets that pursue their target ends up being less effective than a regular gun, and requires the same dumb, old "guns in movies" rules ("I've been shot at... thank God there's plenty of time to run and jump out of the of bullets way"). Since none of the "terrifying" devices cause anything more than a smirk, the tension wheezes out of the movie shortly after the opening credits.

They really bought into every conceivable New Wave trope; mediocre synth music, mannish-Avedon hair on women. It's hard to believe how terrible movies got in the 80s while their smarmy directors thought they were making something to compete with the old noirs. This may be the worst movie ever made, or at least the most incompetent one. A "high-speed" robot pursuit in traffic was obviously shot at tops, 5 miles an hour. In he early part of the movie, you can see a boxy, yellow robot on treads that was clearly stolen as the concept for WALL-E.

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Good movie for its time, 22 January 2007

Author: mdarsman42 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I am a computer/robotics nerd, so this is one of my all time favorites. Tom Selleck is good as a "been there,done that" cop for whom dealing with errant robots has become routine (as in the first scenes). Cynthia Rhodes plays Thompson, a "newbie" robotics cop for whom it is all new and exciting. The fact that the police department has a special squad to deal with runaway robots I find believable in our era of insurance companies and liability lawyers. Anyway, both are tested by having to deal with an evil Techno-merchant, Charles Luther, played by Gene Simmons. The robots, I find, are fairly realistic. What they are capable of is not. The six legged robot "spiders" come right out of Anita Flynns lab at MIT. I am sure she would be amazed that they fly through the air, walk on ceilings, and squirt acid. The agricultural robot and the housekeeper are somewhat more realistic, but most of the technology still isn't here. The "lock ons" and the car mounted laser provide the material for one of the movies most exciting scenes. I have seen clips of the scenes with Luther's smart gun used in Army briefings to illustrate a smart pistol of the future. A lot of the props are dated (check out the antique cordless phone Ramseys tech guy uses). With all these limitations it is still an entertaining movie. Selleck is good as the older cop (with all the obligatory weaknesses and uncertainties of a modern hero), Gene Simmons is great as a suitably evil villain, Kirstie Ally is looking gorgeous as a secretary caught between Selleck and Simmons, and Cynthia Rhodes does a good job with the part of Sellecks protégé without allowing the character to become just eye candy. This movie is more thriller than SciFi. It is somewhat dated, a little corny, but an exciting and fun movie for both teched and general audiences.

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Cops. Robots. Gene Simmons. A surefire win !, 31 May 2006

Author: chets808 from Primate USA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

SPOILER AHEAD.

"Ms. Shields, you're broadcasting on an electromagnetic frequency that the robot reads."

Its terrific techno-babble punking like this that makes this movie endlessly watchable. Let me just say that this isn't a 4 star movie. Unless they give stars for cheese. Its got that enticing Roadhouse quality that never gets old. So, if you're still reading this, you know you could go to 100 reviews and find plot details and the same-ole run down on all the fixings; so allow me to offer you my observations.

Runaway was made at a time when we were still a bit in awe of the possible tech-future. This now defunct movie premise allowed for imaginations to run wild and present silly adventures that future generations could pick apart and laugh at (think now). So here we go:

1. Why is there a special police force to chase down robots run amok ? Something tells me it wouldn't be a tough talking take no prisoners macho man like our good friend Ramsay. The first assignment is SO urgent, it requires our team to fly to the site in a helicopter so they can flip a switch on a caterpillar catcher. Um…OK. Great ! You've saved dozens of corn stalks !

2. Ramsay's partner, Karen, as a cop, wears a skirt and high heels. Just think about the absurdity of chasing down a perp in that get up.

3. I love the security guard in the office building who, for some inexplicable reason, knows about everything there is to know about their computer systems, down to the voice modifications on the computer system (he's not the I.T. guy, he's a security guard), then goes so far as to bust Ramsay's onions on police protocol. Something tells me a security guard wouldn't be getting in a cop's grill. I mean…he is the security guard ! Plus, (I know..beating a dead horse), why do they need that guy, if robots are doing all these kind of jobs in the future ?

4. And while we're on the subject, what kind of future were these guys envisioning when a robotic office sentry runs through the office with a zapping ray gun ? Talk about big brother…

5. Also, notice when Kirstie Alley expires at the restaurant, no one notices that she is thrown face down in the pool. They just keep eating !?

6. Plus, the scenes between Selleck and his child are cringeworthy.

Gene Simmons actually does a good job to not defile himself, however, I wish just once, during one of his close ups, he would break his ominous stare and stick his freakish tongue way out.

Despite all this, it's an enjoyable 90 minutes. Tom Selleck, Cynthia Rhodes and the rest do an admirable job in spite of the lame dialogue and foolish direction. The 1990s brought about a heavy dose of cynicism and we partially lost the fun in imagining what the future holds. Think about Escape from New York, the Terminator, Blade Runner, etc. They all asked us to think about the future. When done right, it can be very entertaining (Minority Report).

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FX are key, 14 November 2000

Author: Kuratowa from Newberry, Florida

Many of the comments here say that the special effects of this movie are laughable. On this point I must disagree.

This movie is science fiction regarding a very near future where humans use robots in their everyday lives. Looking at the state of robotics today, the robots seen in this film are more likely than any seen in other science fiction films (such as Bishop in Aliens or C3PO). This film takes a good look at what robotics and its limitations are and portrays its robots in a realistic way that may not suit those inundated with concepts of the totally, fluid, human like robot.

As for the film itself, it is a straightforward story with very little twists or surprises. Just the story of a cop breaking a case and taking the bad guy down. However, it is enjoyable to watch and I would give it a 7 out of 10.

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FX are key, 14 November 2000

Author: Kuratowa from Newberry, Florida

Many of the comments here say that the special effects of this movie are laughable. On this point I must disagree.

This movie is science fiction regarding a very near future where humans use robots in their everyday lives. Looking at the state of robotics today, the robots seen in this film are more likely that any seen in other science fiction films (such as Bishop in Aliens or C3PO). This film takes a good look at what robotics and its limitations are and portrays its robots in a realistic way that may not suit those inundated with concepts of the totally, fluid, human like robot.

As for the film itself, I agree with the user that looks at this film as comfortable. It is a straightforward story with very little twists or surprises. Just the story of a cop breaking a case and taking the bad guy down. However, it is enjoyable to watch and I would give it a 7 out of 10.

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