EVE OF DESTRUCTION

US, 1990, 101 minutes, Colour.
Gregory Hines, Rene Soutendijk, Kevin Mc Carthy.
Directed by Duncan Gibbins.

Eve of Destruction is a play on words. It sounds like the eve of nuclear destruction which is threatened in the screenplay. Eve also refers to the name of the main character who gives her name to a deadly robot she creates, programming it with her own life history - Eve as the robot of destruction.

The film is a science fiction fantasy, the world of Robocop and other futuristic movies. This time the robot is a deadly woman, a competent robot accidentally injured in a bank hold-up who then goes rogue robot, acting out the fantasies of her creator. As she goes nuclear, there is a 24-hour deadline for her to be stopped. In pursuit are the creator as well as the top anti-terrorist colonel. These roles are taken by Rene Soutendijk, the Dutch actress who appeared in such films as The Fourth Man, Forced March, and Gregory Heinze, better known as a dancer in The Cotton Club and Tap, although he had been on the side of the law in such films as Running Scared and Off Limits.

The film goes for action and suspense rather than plausibility of character. The final confrontation with the robot in the New York subway has only seconds to spare at the end. This belies belief.

However, the character of Eve and her transferring of her own history to the robot is interesting in itself, has psychological and responsibility overtones which are presented but not developed.

While the film strains credibility, it relies on pace and action.

1. Science fiction, fantasy, the future? The variation on the Frankenstein story and its being updated? The credibility of the plot? The interest of the theme - and its relationship to American military warfare, and nuclear weaponry?

2. San Francisco and New York settings, the laboratories, the world of high technology contrasting with the ordinary world? San Francisco settings, the California countryside, New York City, hotels, the streets and the subway? An atmosphere of realism? The musical score?

3. The title, the ambiguities about destruction, the two Eves? Eve as a biblical name, the mother of all the living? Eve and temptation and destruction for the human race (and the sexism of this title)?

4. The prologue, the robot and the hotel scene? The test, the failure? The military involvement, secrecy, budgets, time? The officers involved? Eve's world?

5. The re-enactment of the taking of the hostages, the role-play, the violence, the timing? Mc Quade and his harsh judgment on the enactment? Mc Quade's world?

6. The briefing and bringing Mc Quade and Eve together? The suited officials and their diplomatic and scientific background, the military? Types? Eve and Jim and their world, their orders, the violence of their interchanges and clash? Her accusing him of killing, him accusing her of wasting her time making such robots?

7. The robot Eve: in San Francisco, going into the bank, involved in the robbery, her not getting on the floor, being shot, out of proper circuit? Getting the machine gun? Buying the sexy clothes, hiring the car? Her being programmed with Eve's history - and Eve's fantasies? Speeding on the Golden Gate, the motel, picking up the men? The sexual encounters, their brutality? Her gross reactions, the guns and the massacre? The decision to go to Eve's father, tracking him down, talking with him, the memories of his violence towards Eve's mother? The confrontation and her killing him? Her decision to go to New York, pretending to be the true Eve, the clash with Peter and injuring him in the elevator? Taking Timmy, in the subway? The danger, the computers going haywire, the confrontation with Jim and wounding him, the true Eve confronting Eve, using her psychology to save Timmy, the advancing train? Her eyes - Jim wounding one eye, Eve wounding the other? Her destruction?

8. The real Eve and her story, the scene with her son? Giving her life to robotics? Playing God, programming the robot with her own life - and her subconscious? The arguments with Jim, the pursuit, the motel and the massacre, seeing her father - and the computer's tracking down his location? Going to New York, the phone call to Peter, trying to save her son? Her ability to destroy her alter ego?

9. Jim, his gung-ho background, good at his work, the pursuit, the officials and his communication with them, his not being able to stop the violence, in the subway, understanding Eve, shooting her eye, falling under the train?

10. The building up of tension, the passing of time? Last minute salvation?

11. The picture of men, the man chatting up the robot on the train, the brutal men at the motel, Eve's father - and the flashbacks to his drinking and brutality towards his wife and her death?

12. The robot, its lethal potential, as a woman, her fantasies? Authorities and their inability to control the robot, the switch - and her nuclear power?

13. Themes of science, technology, playing God and this backfiring on the human race?