Zantara Xenophobe
This review contains some SPOILERS, but nothing too drastic.If you happen to be a fan of monster truck rallies or (like me) have seen commercials promoting them, you might recognize the name `Robosaurus.' From what I could tell, it was a humongous machine in the shape of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that could slowly pick up a car in its claws, lift it to its jaws, and chomp down on it until the car was scrap. Oh, and it could also spew flames from its nose. Wasting all that money and fuel for the sake of entertaining a very small percentage of people, mostly male, who blow a month's paycheck to watch huge trucks mash up some station wagons nobody wants. If you are one of those people, you just might be the target audience for `Steel Justice.' I can't think of anyone else that could possibly endure it.The story is set in the near future, where the use of fossil fuels in automobiles and monster trucks have completely destroyed the ozone layer, making the world hot. Or does it? If the ozone layer is gone, you would have tons of skin problems, which would be the least of the world's troubles. People in the movie complain about the heat yet never does the film bother to exemplify this, aside from having hang outs called `ice bars'. Heck, everyone is wearing heavy clothing and never is anyone sweating from the climate. Having the movie set in the future and the ozone layer gone are two factors that are completely unnecessary and unused. It's as if they just knew no one would take it seriously if it were set in the present. But how can we take it seriously anyhow, with music that sounds like it was recorded straight out of a bad sitcom and a plot that is really laughable? Speaking of plot, this whole thing is centered around tough cop David Nash, played by Robert Taylor (who?), a man troubled by the death of his son a year earlier. He watched his son die when some thugs in a high-speed chase hit the car the boy was in and took off. Since then, Nash has been trying to figure out who the thugs were working for while suffering from nightmares of the incident, each one packed with details and clues that eventually lead him to believe his son's death was caused by the thugs lead by an arms dealer named Colonel Duggins (Roy Brocksmith, who I recognized from `Total Recall'). Then he starts to dream of a strange older man, someone he later sees in real life. When he confronts the man, Nash is told that he is actually a gifted human being. That the old man is a time walker that has been alive for thousands of years giving guidance to those with gifted powers. So where does Robosaurus come in? Well, Nash's power is that he can make small objects grow to an enormous size, so he uses his son's toy robot (which is even named Robosaurus in the movie) to help him bust into the bad guy's headquarters and trash the place for revenge. . . . No, I'm serious.I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that a movie where a slow monster truck rally reject that busts crime with fire-spewing nostrils and car crunching jaws is a great idea for a movie! Or even a television series! It would bring in droves of viewers, hook them to their sets each week, and drive its competing shows off the air as people drool for more Robosaurus! Are these really your thoughts? Of course they aren't, because you're smart and don't go to monster truck rallies. And even the most naive of people are going to be giggling at the seriousness of the director's treatment of the Robosaurus rampage. As if that wasn't bad enough, there are also other aspects that make you feel stupid while watching, it's lack of explanation for the time walker and the magic powers the least of them. There is all the narration Nash provides us, trying to explain fruitlessly what's going on, which I suppose is easier than doing it through the lame dialogue that comes out of the undeveloped characters' mouths. And don't forget all those dreams and flashbacks, the number so large that it dumbs down the movie further. And then there is Robosaurus the toy, which comes to life while Nash is asleep or away, removing bombs crooks set in Nash's pad and wheeling around the apartment as if the crew got bored with making the movie and started goofing around with the remote-controlled dinosaur. And what is Joan Chen doing in this? She plays a throw-away character that serves no real purpose in the movie and would have been better off not being in it. If she is wondering why her career hasn't gone as far as it should have, maybe she should think about scratching this off her resume.Perhaps the only chilling thing about `Steel Justice' is that one gets a feeling after watching it that the producers intended to make it into a television show. I can't believe anyone would make this pilot, much less plan on more of the same. Thank goodness someone found some marbles, stuck them inside their skull, and put a stop to any future plans with this material! If they had gone through with it, I bet we would have seen the attendance at monster truck rallies sore nationwide. But not because this show encouraged them to go see Robosaurus, but because people would find the rallies much more intelligent, fun, and entertaining than the garbage they were watching on their idiot boxes. Zantara's score: 1 out of 10.
