"What is this, anyway? Some kinda goddamned comic book? We got robots, we got cavemen, we got kung fu..."
— Harry
Eliminators is a 1986 Science Fiction film directed by Peter Manoogian, starring Denise Crosby, and featuring:
- Robots
- Ninjas
- Cavemen
- Mandroids
- Romans
- Mad scientists
- Gratuitous boat chases
- The kitchen sink
Colonel Nora Hunter (Crosby) is approached by a mandroid who needs her help to stop a Mad Scientist from traveling back in time and becoming God-Emperor of Rome.
Just watch the trailer
and try to remember that it's real and not a Retraux parody.
This movie contains examples of:
- Artificial Gill: "Bio-fed oxygen transcribers"
- Artistic License – Geography: The coordinates of John's crashed plane (26°32′ N, 81°14′ W) map to a point in South Florida and not Mexico.
- Anachronism Stew: Robots, Romans, Neanderthals... justified with Reeves being a Mad Scientist looking to become an Emperor Scientist by the use of Time Travel.
- And I Must Scream: Reeves' final fate. Stuck in a prehistoric era where the only other living thing is bacteria, it's all he can do.
- Anyone Can Die: SPOT and the Mandroid don't make it to the end of the movie.
- Bullet Time: B-Movie version. Used by Kuji to cross the Deadly Rotary Fan.
- Colonel Badass: Colonel Nora Hunter: Kick Chick, good with a gun, Genius Bruiser with an expertise in robotics.
- Deadly Rotary Fan: An obstacle in the Air-Vent Passageway in Reeves' base.
- Deus ex Mandroid: The Mandroid keeps pulling out new features throughout the movie to get them out of sticky situations. Knockout Gas! Magnetic hands! Torpedoes! Underwater breathing! Water jets! Grappling-Hook Pistol!
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Kuji doesn't appears until the team is having trouble with the Neanderthals (at about the fifty-minute mark out of an hour and a half).
- Emperor Scientist: Reeves' ambition.
- Energy Weapon: The Mandroid comes equipped with these.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: the film ends right after the team reprograms Reeves' time travel capsule to overshoot its destination and Hunter giving a Bond One-Liner everybody (who is still alive) chuckles at.
- Fate Worse than Death: How the team stops Reeves' Near-Villain Victory: by making Reeves overshoot his time travel target, ending all the way back to 20 million B.C.-where there's not even dinosaurs, let alone humans, to rule over... and his machine gets wrecked on arrival.
- Fun with Acronyms: "Spot" is really an acronym for "Search, Patrol and Operational Tactician".
- Gratuitous Ninja: The reason Kuji is in the movie.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Mandroid gets jolted dead by a forcefield when he disrupts it to save the rest of the team. SPOT also managed to obtain the information on how to infiltrate Reeves' lab, and shows it to the team before shutting down for good.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: The Mandroid explains to Hunter early in the third act that he loathes what he has been turned into and would like to kill himself but his self-preservation programming prevents him from doing that, so he asks Hunter to kill him. Hunter talks him out of it, but he, in a way, accomplishes what he wanted in the last minutes of the film.
- Immortality Inducer: Why Reeves turns himself into a mandroid as well.
- Insistent Terminology: "Mandroid" instead of "cyborg".
- The Juggernaut: Mandroid!Reeves, using a perfected frame, is completely unstoppable and pulls a Curb-Stomp Battle by his lonesome on the team. They are only saved by Bond Villain Stupidity (leaving them alone so he can start his time jump), and not checking whether the Mandroid (the only member outside the forcefield) is completely dead.
- Lampshade Hanging: See the page quote.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Mandroid has had his memory wiped.
- Loveable Rogue: Harry is essentially a (more-) B-Movie, modern-day swamp-dweller Han Solo wanna-be.
- Mad Scientist: Reeves.
- Mugging the Monster: Two random carjackers smash Hunter's car window and try to steal her backpack (which contains SPOT) right out of her hands. It doesn't ends well for them.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A cyborg (ok, Mandroid), a Gratuitous Ninja, a Loveable Rogue, a Robot Buddy and The Smurfette Principle (who is a Colonel Badass).
- Robot Buddy: SPOT.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Or more like shoot dead the clowns: cute Robot Buddy SPOT is asked to do recon on Reeves' base and then an action scene happens... and he comes back on the scene after that reprogrammed by Reeves to kill the crew, forcing Kuji to smash it. Things get a bit grimmer for the crew right after that.
- Shout-Out:
- Harry: "Relax! I saw this in a movie once."
- Time Machine: What Reeves has been building in his secret jungle base.
- Upgrade vs. Prototype Fight: Mandroid vs. the more advanced Mandroid!Reeves. Unfortunately, the result is a Curb-Stomp Battle on Reeves' favor, even with the rest of the team providing support.
- Walking Techbane: Harry accidentally makes Reeves' time-travel machinery go haywire by hitting a random keyboard, which causes Reeves' Near-Villain Victory to end up badly.
- The Walls Are Closing In: Mandroid!Reeves shoots a forcefield at the team, which threatens to shrink and crush them. Until the Mandroid pulls his Heroic Sacrifice.
- We Can Rebuild Him: John was a pilot who crashed and was (unwillingly) rebuilt by Reeves as a cyb... Mandroid.
- You Killed My Father: Kuji's dad (a Reluctant Mad Scientist forced to be Reeves' assistant) is killed early in the movie helping the Mandroid escape.
