Prolific exploitation helmer Jim Wynorski has whipped out over 80 low budget mellers in his 25 year career and has acquired a reputation for producing grade-Z schlock. "Storm Trooper," however, qualifies as an above-average epic for Wynorski compared to his usual nonsense. This uneven marital breakdown drama meets sci-fi shoot'em up relies on straight-up, dramatic human interaction rather than the usual impersonal relationships between synthetic characters. Mind you, "Storm Trooper" is nothing to rave about, but it surpasses the typical Wynorski potboiler. Indeed, "Storm Trooper" may rank in his top ten. The action is confined to a single evening, something you rarely see in these features so it observes the unities of time, place, and action.
The Tannis Corporation loses a police cyborg prototype when one of two escapes from a high security military research laboratory, and the military scramble teams of trigger-happy thugs to recover the android. General Beckett (Arthur Roberts of "Big Bad Mama 2") contacts his superior at the Central Intelligence Agency, General Gardner (Jay Richardson of "Bad Girls from Mars") about the escape. Predictably, General Gardner is appalled by this conspicuous lapse of security. "If word leaks out about this operation of yours," Gardner asserts, "why it going to make those Watergate conspirators look like choirboys next to us." Meanwhile, a depressed wife, Grace (Carol Alt of "Thunder in Paradise"), shoots her abusive, highway patrol motorcycle cop husband, Randle (Tim Abell of "Sexual Roulette"), in the back. She blames Randle for the death of their eight-year old son Kenny because Randle had taken their son with him. The details are never clearly spelled out, but Grace remembers later how a kid who had no intention of shooting Kenny had shot him because the youth got in the way of his target. Presumably, the target was Randle. The android (John Laughlin of "Motorama") wears an outfit that he obtained from a human. The name on the outfit is Stark, so everybody refers to the android as Stark. Stark gathers a small arsenal, appropriates a motorcycle from an unsuspecting innocent bystander and tears off into the night.
Anyway, the cyborg finds himself the target of a massive manhunt. He has an exciting showdown with one of its pursuers, McCleary (veteran character actor Ross Hagen of "The Mini-Skirt Mob"), on the highway. McCleary is driving an eighteen wheeler while Stark straddles a motorcycle and they hurl themselves at each other, except that Stark has an explosive device. Stark survives the high-octane encounter, but McCleary, the eighteen wheeler, and the motorcycle are fried. Starks staggers off to the house where Randle and Grace live. He shows up moments after Grace kills her husband. Grace's dog Rocky attacks Stark, and Grace drags the dog inside and ties him up. She still thinks that the man is outside when he walks in on her and she brandishes her gun. Stark collapses and Grace points her gun at him. "You've just come to wrong place at the wrong time." She contemplates killing Stark in cold blood and relents. Instead, she puts hand cuffs on him. At this point, Grace has no idea what predicament that she is caught up in with the man on her kitchen floor. Meantime, the military wants to end this nightmare before more people die and Deaton (Rick Hill of "Deathstalker") enters the fracas, but he has no better luck.
Stark eliminates most of the hired guns for the Tannis Corporation and then discovers the corpse of Grace's dead husband in her bathtub and reverts to his protocol as a policeman and tries to arrest her. She blows Stark up and cherry picks weapons and apparel from the dead. One of the gunman, Corporal Roth (a miscast Corey Feldman), contributes an eye patch. As the last few minutes of this disposable 96-minute thriller concludes, our heroine who is pretty handy with hardware has decked herself out to look like Nick Fury on a motorcycle and then rides off. The best scene has Grace taking a shower with her defunct husband sprawled at her feet while she carries on a sarcastic, one-sided conversation with him that mimics his comments about her before she shot him. No, "Storm Trooper" has nothing to do with Nazi Germany, this contemporary for its time suspense-thriller is average stuff with not as much blood and gore as it could have used. The ending is better than anything else. Carol Alt looks as sexy as always, even though she doesn't show off her statuesque body. John Laughlin gives a thoughtful performance as the naive android who wants to protect Grace, while Rick Hill is good as the ruthless leader of an assault team.
The Tannis Corporation loses a police cyborg prototype when one of two escapes from a high security military research laboratory, and the military scramble teams of trigger-happy thugs to recover the android. General Beckett (Arthur Roberts of "Big Bad Mama 2") contacts his superior at the Central Intelligence Agency, General Gardner (Jay Richardson of "Bad Girls from Mars") about the escape. Predictably, General Gardner is appalled by this conspicuous lapse of security. "If word leaks out about this operation of yours," Gardner asserts, "why it going to make those Watergate conspirators look like choirboys next to us." Meanwhile, a depressed wife, Grace (Carol Alt of "Thunder in Paradise"), shoots her abusive, highway patrol motorcycle cop husband, Randle (Tim Abell of "Sexual Roulette"), in the back. She blames Randle for the death of their eight-year old son Kenny because Randle had taken their son with him. The details are never clearly spelled out, but Grace remembers later how a kid who had no intention of shooting Kenny had shot him because the youth got in the way of his target. Presumably, the target was Randle. The android (John Laughlin of "Motorama") wears an outfit that he obtained from a human. The name on the outfit is Stark, so everybody refers to the android as Stark. Stark gathers a small arsenal, appropriates a motorcycle from an unsuspecting innocent bystander and tears off into the night.
Anyway, the cyborg finds himself the target of a massive manhunt. He has an exciting showdown with one of its pursuers, McCleary (veteran character actor Ross Hagen of "The Mini-Skirt Mob"), on the highway. McCleary is driving an eighteen wheeler while Stark straddles a motorcycle and they hurl themselves at each other, except that Stark has an explosive device. Stark survives the high-octane encounter, but McCleary, the eighteen wheeler, and the motorcycle are fried. Starks staggers off to the house where Randle and Grace live. He shows up moments after Grace kills her husband. Grace's dog Rocky attacks Stark, and Grace drags the dog inside and ties him up. She still thinks that the man is outside when he walks in on her and she brandishes her gun. Stark collapses and Grace points her gun at him. "You've just come to wrong place at the wrong time." She contemplates killing Stark in cold blood and relents. Instead, she puts hand cuffs on him. At this point, Grace has no idea what predicament that she is caught up in with the man on her kitchen floor. Meantime, the military wants to end this nightmare before more people die and Deaton (Rick Hill of "Deathstalker") enters the fracas, but he has no better luck.
Stark eliminates most of the hired guns for the Tannis Corporation and then discovers the corpse of Grace's dead husband in her bathtub and reverts to his protocol as a policeman and tries to arrest her. She blows Stark up and cherry picks weapons and apparel from the dead. One of the gunman, Corporal Roth (a miscast Corey Feldman), contributes an eye patch. As the last few minutes of this disposable 96-minute thriller concludes, our heroine who is pretty handy with hardware has decked herself out to look like Nick Fury on a motorcycle and then rides off. The best scene has Grace taking a shower with her defunct husband sprawled at her feet while she carries on a sarcastic, one-sided conversation with him that mimics his comments about her before she shot him. No, "Storm Trooper" has nothing to do with Nazi Germany, this contemporary for its time suspense-thriller is average stuff with not as much blood and gore as it could have used. The ending is better than anything else. Carol Alt looks as sexy as always, even though she doesn't show off her statuesque body. John Laughlin gives a thoughtful performance as the naive android who wants to protect Grace, while Rick Hill is good as the ruthless leader of an assault team.
