Whitsbrain

3/10

This stars Brad Dourif as a psychotic, emotionally-stunted genius inventor whose apple doesn't fall far from the Heath-Ledger-as-Joker tree. He's actually so over the top that he's annoying and if you go looking for subtlety from the other cast members, forget it. "Death Machine" is a loud, messy movie. The characters spend the last half of the movie running around, opening an endless number of doors. If you like movies with characters using card swipers and entering codes to run in and out of rooms, this is your flick. All of the characters yell at each other, insulting and quipping continually. They shoot automatic weapons, pumping hundreds of rounds into a killer robot that basically shreds its victims. At first the shots of the robot are all done from its own point of view, which is kind of cool, until the filmmakers beat the technique into the ground. The story itself doesn't make much sense at all and character motivations are nearly non-existent. The "death machine" robot looks alright when it's finally shown from head to toe. There is some pretty well done stop-motion in places, but overall the whole movie has a cheap '90s straight to home video look.