Vendetta dal futuro


Vendetta dal futuro is an Italian science fiction film directed by Sergio Martino. The film stars Daniel Greene, George Eastman and John Saxon.

Plot

An evil industrialist has created a cyborg who is 70% robot and 30% human.

Cast

Hands of Steel was filmed in Arizona with some scenes shot at the Grand Canyon and the town of Arcosanti. Actor Claudio Cassinelli died in Page, Arizona during production as he was on a helicopter that crashed into the Navajo Bridge.

Style

Howard Hughes noted the film as belonged to a group of Italian film productions that borrowed elements from the film The Terminator, including Bruno Mattei's Shocking Dark and Nello Rossati's Alien Terminator. In his overview of 1980s action films, Daniel R. Budnik described the film as "the hybrid movie to end all hybrid movies", noting not just The Terminator and Blade Runner as influences, but that the plot also borrowed from Over the Top.

Release

Vendetta dal futuro passed Italian censors in 1986. The film has been released with the English titles of Atomic Cyborg and Hands of Steel.

Reception

From retrospective reviews, Hughes described Vendetta dal futuro as "the best example" of the films in-dept to The Terminator, noting its other influences of Blade Runner with a karate fighting android and praising an action sequence featuring lorries, cars and helicopters as well as the score. Budnik found that the film beginning was boring with its more political elements, but improved after these scenes and that it was "fine, furious desert action with arm wrestling, and some sort of strange cybord woman thrown in to confuse things." Donald Guarisco of AllMovie described the film as a "decent time-killer for b-movie fans" noting that its "southwestern setting gives it a unique flavor and Sergio Martino does a decent job of delivering plentiful action on a shoestring budget: his best moment might be a scene where the hero has to fend off gun-toting assassins while also fighting a pair of disguised cyborgs in close quarters." Guarisco concluded that "The end results are frequently silly but never dull" and declared the film to be "strictly for the b-movie audience but they're likely to enjoy its low-budget fun."

Footnotes