IFO: IDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECT (1987) ½ *

A nerdy dork gets picked on by his sister, bullies, cops, and just about everyone in his small town.  He discovers a secret military hanger out in the desert and starts snooping around.  It seems the scientists there have created a remote-controlled artificially-intelligent helicopter that’s become self-aware, not to mention crazy.  While they sit around and figure out what to do with it, the kid sneaks in and brings the helicopter home.  He sends the robo-copter on a test flight and it goes out to get revenge on the scientists who wanted to terminate it.

In the right hands, this could’ve worked.  Think Christine meets Blue Thunder with a healthy dose of E.T. to go around.  (There’s even a scene where the kid puts the helicopter on his bike just like in E.T.)  Unfortunately, it was directed by Ulli Lommel

Now, Lommel did a fine job on The Boogeyman.  No argument there.  However, when it comes to a movie about a boy and his psycho robo-copter, he is totally out of his element.

Never mind that the script is often just too goofy for words.  We can accept a plot about a RC helicopter that talks.  What is unacceptable is the fact that it can control people’s minds and make them act like complete nincompoops.  (You have to wonder if the helicopter was controlling the filmmakers’ minds too.)

It also doesn’t help that our hero is such a dork.  I mean we’ve seen some real dopes in these movies before, but this guy takes the cake.  In some parts, he makes his entrance by literally falling face first into the scene.

The acting is atrocious too.  Get a load of the scene where the scientists are scared by the helicopter.  It’s pathetic.

Most of this is unbelievably dull.  Incredibly enough, Lommel finds new ways to make it even more boring.  The long scenes of the remote-controlled helicopter flying around are unbearable enough (although the actual aerial footage is pretty good), but by adding terrible synth music on the soundtrack (which sounds alternately like sideways rewrites of The Greatest American Hero theme song and “Into the Wild Blue Yonder”), it just makes you want to fall asleep.  The droning synth notes combined with the long takes of landscapes serenely passing by will make this the perfect cure for insomnia.

The scientists call the helicopter “Rem”.  It’s supposed to be short for “Rembrandt”.  They should’ve called the movie “Rem” because that’s the cycle of sleep you’ll be in by the time it’s over.

AKA:  Defense Play.  AKA:  REM 1 Experiment.