Eve of Destruction (1991) - Movie Review

What do you get when producers want to meld the realistic sci-fi setting Terminator with the over the top ultra violence of Robocop, but don’t want to shell out the money for quality writing or directing?

You’re about to find out.

Eve of Destruction is a 1991 Science Fiction / Action / Thriller brought to us by the director of The Best of Wham! and the writer of two episodes of Against the Law. Yeah, that tells you what a shit show this film is. All I can think is after securing the services of American Legend Gregory Hines, there was just nothing left.

And reading the script, all I can think is that Gregory Hines must have been desperate for money, because—Christ, this is bad.

Seriously, check this out:

The film focuses on Dr. Eve Simmons, a brilliant roboticist working for a secret government agency. Her life’s work is a nuclear powered android that not only looks exactly like her, but is infused with all of her own traumatic memories. You see, Dr. Eve is a sexually repressed feminist who was not only raised by an abusive father who murdered her mother, but she also married an abusive man, and has become an absentee mother to her own son. So, when the training run of EVE VIII is interrupted by damage sustained in a bank robbery, it unlocks these memories and sends her on a revenge trip fueled by the enmity of her creator. With no other choice, the government brings in anti-terrorist specialist, Col. Jim McQuade to neutralize the threat. But when EVE VIII’s nuclear core begins to go into meltdown, will Jim and Eve be able to stop her rampage, or will the entire city of New York be leveled? Find out in Eve of Destruction.

Or don't. It’s really not worth your time.

As you can tell from that convoluted synopsis—and I did my best to be concise—this movie is a mess. Not only are the special effects and set-dressing laughable. I mean—the secret base looks like the set of a high school production of Dr. Strangelove equipped with walls of flashing buttons and knobs.

The story is a ham-fisted attempt at the feminist nightmare trope.

Yes, that’s a thing.

Think about it…

Basic Instinct, Disclosure, Poison Ivy, and Fatal Attraction were all 90’s hit films based around this same trope. Sexually empowered professional women attacking the nuclear family norm with their loose, albeit psychotic ways.

But this movie lacks the main thing that made the hit Feminist Nightmare films work—believably written women with actual believable issues. Dr. Eve is written as a bitchy, unlikable nerd who’s main setting is Maximum Karen and her story of pretty much being abused by everything with a penis she’s ever met is laughable. The writing is just so hackneyed and the character is given no real dialogue to establish any type of chemistry with her costars or the viewer. It doesn’t help that prolific foreign language actress Renee Soutendijik is visibly struggling with the English language in the film and apparently forgot how to emote. It’s obvious to me that she was picked for her happiness to be full frontal nude in pretty much any movie she’s ever been in. As EVE VIII is naked in multiple scenes.

It’s obvious to me that two old white guys set out to attempt a feminist action film, but instead ended up with a bland, unimaginative—misogynistic mess of a movie.

The action scenes and brutal violence aren’t even exciting because you just don’t care. Part of that is the flat performance of Soutendijik, but the other problem is Gregory Hines.

Woah, woah—Hear me out.

While I grew up loving Gregory Hines—White Knights is my jam—he was not the right pick for this film. Especially when the director obviously has no talent for inspiring his actors. In my mind, Hines direction was—yell at the white woman in every scene. No, really, just scream at her—the audience is gonna love it.

They didn’t.

The most positive review I’ve found for the film calls it “Barely-functional.”

Ouch.

The audience score on the for this bad boy is at a solid 14%, which is higher than it really deserves.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this movie.

If you need to punish yourself for your sins this is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.