Who?

No this isn't a question, it's actually the name of a film. As I mentioned in my review of Capricorn One, this is the other 70s sci-fi thriller starring Elliot Gould. Ahh, the 70s... Back when Elliot still had most of his original hair.

I'm writing this review in the vain hope that if you ever spot this on TV, then I will have saved you from wasting about 93 minutes of your life. If that happens, I do expect at least a thank you from you, if not a small bar of chocolate. To think that I once thought The Core was a bad film. It has nothing on this film.

Where do I start? Certainly not at the beginning, because the narrative style doesn't support such an obvious starting place. Doctor Lucas Martino has been behind the iron curtain for several years and is being returned to the Americans. Don't ask why he was there, or why they're returning him, because you'll never be told. To make matters more complicated, he has been in a horrific car accident and has had his entire head and left arm replaced by metal.

That's about as sensible as the plot gets. It had some potential for a good thriller, because the Americans can't be certain he really is Dr Martino, so they don't know if it's safe to send him back to the top secret Project Neptune, since he could be a Soviet spy. Oh, and don't ask what Project Neptune is either, because that too is an equally unfulfilled inquiry. The reason it fails as a thriller is because you're constantly distracted by the man's ridiculous head. And it fails as sci-fi, partly because it's a weak film premise, but mostly because of the man's ridiculous head.

There's absolutely no tension in the film at all, people mostly react in fear at first, but after a few minutes, they are chatting away to him like it's the most normal thing in the world. If it was a film made in the 70s, but set in the future when such prosthetics were more common, this would be understandable, but this film is set in the 70s.

Then there's the visual effects for the make-up, which looks as if they went all out on budget and employed the same person who invents things for the kids to make on Blue Peter to design, build and apply the prosthetics, or as I call them: the pathetics. A more obvious pappier mache and silver spray paint job, I have never seen. It's something of a minor miracle that the other actors can keep a straight face while delivering their lines. During one of the more boring parts (and there's more than a few), I even wondered if perhaps there was a stage hand just out of shot periodically killing puppies to keep the mood sombre. I half expected to see "Puppy Exterminator" in the credits.

And finally, there's the flashback to the Soviets planning the whole thing, which completely ruins the actually ending where you don't know if he is a spy or not.

I wonder if the makers of this film realised that it's name would eventually become so ironic, because after watching this, I had only one question: What?!?

Score: So low, it's actually managed to fall off the Saxon Film Score. Lower than an F. I'd give it an F, but only in the school definition of F, like my friend Tom who managed to score an F- on a maths test.

OQ:

Alternative Titles: Also know as Robo Manor The Man with the Steel Mask (Europe: English title) (video title)

If you really really want to know, he isn't a spy. He's the real Doctor Martino. There was a plan to disguise a spy as him and send the spy back, but that spy died during the operation, so they had to send the real Doctor back. He then gives up all hope of returning to his former life at Project Neptune and becomes a farmer. See: I told you it wasn't worth it.