Pinatariders.org

[posted over at michiganfandom by Alex~freon]

Prototype (1983)
(BOULEVARD ENTERTAIMENT)
Starring: Christopher Plummer | David Morse | Frances Sternhagen | James
Sutorius | Stephen Elliot | Arthur Hill
Director: David Greene
Run time: 92 mins
Genres: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Released: January 2005

by A Hymark (Manchester MI)
Forget the campy alien-on-earth cliche treatments. PROTOTYPE delivers the
smartest dialogue yet to be seen in SF film, in a contemporary of Mary Shelley’s
FRANKENSTEIN.
In a performance that brings smart dialogue and simple but telling
cinematography to a deserving SF-savvy audience, Richard Levinson and William
Link mark a cerebral triumph in this 1983 TV film starring Christopher Plummer,
David Morse and Frances Sternhagen - now in recent DVD release. With such a
well thought-out script, one is left to guess that the film was derived from the
theatrical likes of Peter Schaffer or Arthur Miller, but with a tight and wholly
spec-fic basis from classic SF matriarch Mary Shelley. In this unabashed homage
to that story which began a genre, artifical life is brought to casual life as
we know it - a curiosity, a property, a fellow living thing, and finally an
entity in search of its purpose, place and destiny.
‘Michael’, the culmination of years of research by a Pentagon-sponsored
program to develop a mechanical man, is introduced to us just as creator and
mentor Forrester introduces it to an unsuspecting Mrs. Forrester, in an
impromptu Turing test weeks ahead of schedule. Afterwards, convinced that the
successes in the creature’s first experience outside the controlled environment
of the lab are a milestone in their careers, Forrester’s research team discovers
that instead of celebrating, they should now fear the control which the
government has been preparing to exert all along. Forthwith, Forrester and his
mechanical man go AWOL from the doctor’s work, his team, and his own personal
life - to see his creation through to its own self-determination.
There is no high speed chase scene. There are no gun battles, and no
hunchbacked, ghastly half-made man shambling amok about the countryside
terrorizing innocents. Only this bright and responsive albeit naive young man
who never blinks, drinks, or realizes when he tells a stupefyingly appropriate
joke. With this unseemly Pinnochio goes the doctor, a man who finds himself
questioning his own intents and purpose as he tries to defend his life’s work
from those who would ‘alter’ it - perhaps to turn Michael to military ends, or
to tap the knowledge of an artificial mind for more … human … purposes. The
villain is only the looming threat of misuse of a great thing.
The film makes you think. Hard, too, because its social commentary and
hypothesis is presented in a most stipped-down and unpretentious format,
unencumbered by anything by which it could become dated or trivialized - no high
budget special effects or quasi-horrific makeup cloud this film and no glib,
idiotic dialogue or cornball voiceover pollutes it. In short, PROTOTYPE is a
mind-grower not a mind-blower. Think of PHENOMENON without nonsense, or STARMAN
without the glam of superhuman ability. DARYL without any kid stuff.
For all it’s worth, ‘Michael’ is human enough that you want to cry at the
mistreatment doled out to him for his innocence, but at the same time you are
morally lost with Forrester, who is doggedly naive in attempting to save him.
In the end the only thing that gives hope is the basis for the title: PROTOTYPE
is only the first, and of course there can be more.
If the shuttle’s Canadian-made robot arm had a thumb, it would be up.