HANDS OF STEEL (1986)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor* 
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS:  *sociological*


Of the three films reviewed here, only the last of them sustains a "fair" level of symbolic discourse, which I term "mythicity." That said, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE is the least entertaining of the three.

When I was an adolescent SF-fan, I probably would have automatically validated COLLIDE as the best of the three, not because of its symbolic discourse but because it looked like a "class act," with moderately impressive FX and a literate script. Over time, though, I've often found more "myth-matters" in relatively cheap or marginalized works.

That said, the only myths in Sergio Martino's HANDS OF STEEL are those swiped from 1984's THE TERMINATOR and any number of Mad Max imitations. To be sure, Martino reverses TERMINATOR's pattern, in which a pair of beleaguered humans seek to escape a remorseless android.  Here the hero, the oddly named "Paco Queruak," is a man who was turned into a cyborg by an evil scientific project, and who goes on the run, hiding in a human community in desolate Arizona to escape. Most of the hunters sent after Paco by evil project-head Turner (John Saxon) are humans, with the exception of a female cyborg (seen above) who gives Paco a rough time, and not in a good way.

Derivative as STEEL is, it has some oddball touches that redeem it. When Paco hides out in the Arizona sticks, he encounters a bunch of rednecks, one of whom is played by George Eastman, essaying his usual macho bully-boy. But for a small change, Paco settles most of his conflicts with the rednecks by beating them in arm-wrestling contests. This has caused just about every online review of STEEL to reference Sly Stallone's slightly later arm-wrestling movie, OVER THE TOP.

Aside from that minor distinction, I can't say STEEL delivers a lot of action, even for its B-movie production levels, but there are some decent shootouts and one nice scene where super-strong Paco encounters a helmet-wearing gunman and simply punches through the helmet to pulp the head within.  Paco has a spunky almost-girlfriend who helps him mow down the hunters even though she seems to have no experience with firearms.  The climax is desultory but if one's expectations for Italian SF are low to start with, this isn't a major demerit.  Lead actor Daniel Greene shows no ability to play to audience's expectations of how an emotionless cyborg might act, as Arnold Schwarzenegger did so nicely.  Still, Greene's lack of acting-charisma offers some extra amusement, though STEEL isn't "over the top" enough to make a "good bad movie."