Android

ANCHOR BAY

BEING A KLAUS KINSKI completist has its downside. It means I have to sit through a whole lotta crappy movies for which Kinski got top billing, was paid extravagantly and appears onscreen for a total of 10 minutes.

1983's Android is a bit like that. Kinski plays a half-mad scientist living on a space station with his very human (and very gay) android, "Max 404." It seems a failed android rebellion on Earth in the 2020s resulted in the outlawing of robots. Since Kinski was a robot designer, the corporation he worked for sent him into space to continue his illegal research. The nervous and bumbling Max is his most recent design.

Most of the film, however, centers on a tense, bickering trio of escaped corporate terrorists, who hide out at the station while they repair their spaceship. Max, who has never met a woman before, is quite smitten with the female terrorist (played by Brie Howard).

The moment Max gets tongue-tied upon first meeting her, the film reveals its true nature.

This is not a science fiction film or an action-adventure film, in spite of what all the spaceships and ray guns would seem to imply. It's a sweet coming-of-age romantic comedy in a cheap disguise. And Kinski or no Kinski, who the hell needs that?

Speaking of Kinski, he's seen only rarely, as his character spends most of his time in the lab working on his next android-a large-boned, Nordic female. (You have to wonder why a robotics genius would make himself a gay android, then a chunky one.) When he does appear, he's both magnetic and clearly bored. It's also obvious that he's putting real moves on Brie Howard whenever they're together, and that she doesn't like it one bit.

Meanwhile, Max (played by the film's screenwriter, Don Keith Opper) is watching old movies and listening to James Brown. He's getting to be more human, see? He's even talking back to Kinski!

It's all pretty bland and predictable. Max comes into his own and decides to return to Earth with the terrorists. We learn that Kinski isn't quite what he seems. And government agents track the escapees down to the space station.

It seems obvious that the filmmakers were desperate to have it every which way. They were trying to appeal to a male audience with the spaceships, prison breaks, ray guns and a female lead who takes her clothes off. And they were trying to appeal to the female audience with a sweet, gentle, gay robot.

It's pretty ironic then, if you think about it, that the only audience Android appealed to in the end was the Kinski completists who'll watch anything. And lord knows they've got troubles.