In some ways, the transparently lean budget of “Runaway” (1984) makes its vision of the future that much more realistic. How many science fiction projects throw good money after bad to try to make us believe our robot overlords will be sleek, impervious, and totally bad-ass. When the robots go haywire in “Runaway,” they look like a future we might truly inhabit, in which we know domestic robots will be every bit as cheap as our printers, our vacuum cleaners, our coffee makers, and our digital clocks. When one breaks, we’ll toss it in the dumpster and go to a gross box-store and buy a new one.
In contrast, Roy and I, both issued back in the 1960s, just keep chugging along, week after week, for nearly four years, as a matter of fact, on Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, saving you the labor of having to overthink sci-fi screen entertainment of yore.
In “Runaway,” writer-director Michael Crichton revisits some of the preoccupations he explored in “Westworld” and later resurrected for “Jurassic Park.” You can bet your bottom dollar at some point the tech is going to run off the rails. At the same time, he draws on a good many clichés from 1970s cop pictures. (Long-suffering Chief of Police: “You screwed up good, Ramsay. We got two dead officers, understand me, mister?”)
If the movie were made today, undoubtedly it would be much edgier and self-consciously dystopian, with the themes of terrorism, technology run amok, media exploitation, and all-pervasive surveillance, ramped up and heavily, heavily underlined. And most certainly, there would be a weightier emphasis on the moral complications of harnessing artificial intelligence. But this was the 1980s, when the cotton candy billowed as profusely as Cynthia Rhodes’ perm.
Poor Tom Selleck, whose movie career never caught traction from the time he was forced to turn down “Raiders of the Lost Ark” because of his “Magnum P.I.” contract, has charisma and screen presence, but his efforts for the multiplex (“High Road to China,” “Lassiter,” “Quigley Down Under”), while undeniably entertaining, are all pretty disposable.
But shed no tears for Tom. He’s had a very good career, working constantly since at least the ’70s, and he’s been a star since “Magnum.” And in the movie house, he did have one runaway hit with “Three Men and a Baby.” The kid in that film was more believable than the one in this one, which makes Selleck’s acting ability perhaps all the more underrated.
However, it is Kiss’s Gene Simmons who steals the show, as an arms-dealing sociopath. Simmons’ grins exude menace in a way you would expect of a slippery cinematic psycho. He’s Simmons Bar Sinister.
None of it is meant to be taken very seriously. There’s one jump-scare that had me howling with laughter, and the long-deferred, though inevitable fade-out kiss goes on forever through the end credits (in a hail of sparks).
The creative team had the funds to hire film composer Jerry Goldsmith – who wrote the rollicking music for Crichton’s Victorian heist picture “The Great Train Robbery” (1978) – but apparently not an orchestra, so we get wall-to-wall electronica. I love Jerry, but I wasn’t really a fan of his electronic music. (I’m looking at you, “Gremlins.”) Brad Fiedel’s electronic score for “Terminator,” which buried “Runaway” at the box office, was less intrusive.
Bottom line: “Runaway” is no classic, but it’s a fun slice of ‘80s cheese. Bring your crackers to the comments section, when we livestream on Facebook, YouTube, etc. We’ll run off at the mouth about “Runaway,” this Friday evening at 7:00 EST!