Roboman

A surprisingly unexploitative Corman film with a weaker start, but with an excellent Don Keith Opper as a lonely android on a space station who wants to become human. The funniest thing about the film is his “mental” transformation from an infantile naif, learning about the world through 20th century movies, to a reprogrammed killing machine (James Cameron was involved as a production designer, and quite possibly picked up the inspiration for his later Terminator here). The film basically has no single positive character, but Opper (who playfully outshines the otherwise dominant Klaus Kinski as the mad scientist) manages to retain our sympathy even when the bad human qualities and emotions that gradually strip him of his innocence begin to stir. Android has a very cheesy production design, even by Corman's standards (the sets look like something out of kid’s show and the props like something out of a toy store), but it doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't come across as unintentionally funny, even as it asks deep existential questions like “what does it mean to be human?” (23.06.2017)