No emotion. No fear. No pain. They were the perfect soldiers to protect mankind - until the drone police became the perfect enemy.
— Tallis
The Last Sentinel is a 2007 post-apocalypse sci-fi action film directed by Jesse V. Johnson, starring Don Wilson (from the Bloodfist series, all of them), Katee Sackhoff, Keith David and Bokeem Woodbine.
20 Minutes into the Future, humans lost a war against the drone police, created to serve humanity in the first place. When Tallis, a grizzled ex-soldier and survivor rescues an amnesiac young woman and takes her in as his partner, they will have to fight their way out against a seemingly endless horde of mechanical enemies.
Not to be confused with the 2023 film Last Sentinel.
The Last Sentinel contains examples of:
- Abandoned Warehouse: A shootout climaxing the second act takes place in one of these.
- Action Girl: The... Girl. Who can kick plenty of ass and forms a Battle Couple with Tallis in the second half of the movie.
- Action Survivor: The Girl again, when Tallis retrieves her, she is unconscious and the Sole Survivor of a failed La Résistance ambush against a platoon of drones.
- After the End: Much of the film takes place not long after humanity lost a war against drones created to serve mankind, with small pockets of La Résistance occasionally trying to fight back, but unsuccessfully.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The drone program was initially used as means to suppress crime in the United States. But the AI behind the drones ultimately decides to overthrow its creators.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Tallis and his friend Anchilles, until the latter bites it. Then Tallis and the Girl forms a Battle Couple against the drones.
- Badass Cape: Worn on Tallis throughout the later half of the movie, and also the Girl after she Took a Level in Badass.
- Battle Couple: Tallis and the Girl kiss after having an obvious mutual attraction, then possibly have sex offscreen. Afterwards, the two continue fighting the drones as a team.
- Black Dude Dies First: Tallis' Token Black Friend, Anchilles, is set up as a major character who kicks ass alongside Tallis in a big shootout against multiple drones, surviving an urban battle and forming a two-man-army with his friend... but right after all the action is over, a stray drone machine guns him dead, and Tallis has to haul Anchilles' dead body behind him while fending off the drones.
- Blood Knight: Colonel Norton and his sapient gatling gun extol fighting, longing to die a glorious death. The latter wants nothing more than to simply gun down however many enemy soldiers that it's possible for him, before killing a last few by triggering a bomb.
- Booby Trap: Tallis uses this method to get the drop on a drone army hunting him in a darkened warehouse, using claymores, landmines, and some assistance from Colonel Norton's AI-controlled gatling gun.
- Child Soldier: As shown in multiple of Tallis' childhood flashbacks, he was trained since a child to be a soldier, alongside a dozen other children.
- Cyborg: Tallis and other soldiers from his unit had cybernetic eye implants. The Super Drones appear to be partly biological too, since when the last unmasks he has a face that although inhuman still looks organic.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Tallis openly stares down at her when The Girl, an attractive young woman, is topless sponge-bathing herself from a balcony behind her. It seems she knows and doesn't care either.
- Elite Mook: Elite Drones, which are clad in red armour instead of the standard black. They are also much deadlier and gives Tallis a much harder time in the final battle.
- Eye Scream: Subverted with Anchilles; after he dies, Tallis has to use his dagger to dig out the implant in Anchilles' eye to prevent the drones from tracking them, but he's removing the eyeball of a corpse. However it was played straight when Tallis has to remove his own eyeball near the end of the film when the Super Drone and a few red drones are tracking him down.
- Faceless Goons: The drones doesn't have any feature visible on their faces; lower tier-mooks have black face-plates with two dark eye-lenses which are a stand-in for eyes, while the red Elite Mooks only have a chevron-shaped slit where their eyes and nose are supposed to be.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: The drones have terrible aim, and can't even hit Tallis or the Girl from less than ten meters away. It really makes the audience wonder how did they manage to win a war against humans and enslave all of mankind given how incompetent they are. This appears to be Plot Armor, as their aim is fine against supporting human characters.
- Keystone Army: Subverted; the drone army deactivates after Tallis kills its AI, but a small number of Red Drones, and their leader, the Super Drone, continue marching after Tallis since they operate autonomously.
- The Last Title
- Machine Blood: Regular drone mooks bleed neon-blue blood, while their red-coloured superiors bleed white.
- Mecha-Mooks: The Drone Police are entirely robotic and artificial, and are powered by a single AI. Although their designs are at least somewhat close to human anatomy, since Tallis managed to kill a few with his dagger via Slashed Throat.
- No Name Given: The Girl, played by Katee Sackhoff, is never identified by name. The end credits just list her as "The Girl".
- Pineapple Surprise:
- While fighting a red drone, Tallis managed to remove the pin from one of the drone's grenade before shoving the drone into water. BOOM.
- Later on, after digging out his own eyeball to remove the tracking implant, Tallis uses said implant together with a few grenades, sans pins, to set up an explosive trap for three red drones.
- Robot War: The main premise of the film. Humanity created robotic police to fight rising crime, but they rebelled and mostly wiped humans out. Only a very few survivors are still fighting against them when the story begins.
- Scary Black Man: There is Tallis' superior, Colonel Norton as played by Keith David, an eager Blood Knight (along with his sapient gatling gun) so fond of violence it's pretty creepy. Downplayed with Tallis' Token Black Friend Anchilles, who kicks quite a bit of ass but is rather affable and not really scary.
- Smart Gun: Angel, Tallis' assault rifle, has self-aware A.I. and helps Tallis with tactical support. Colonel Norton's minigun has a similar system and Tallis uses it in the final battle by setting it up as a Sentry Gun and asking it to blow away as many hostiles as it can as a distraction.
- Spoiler Cover: That cover above spoils the fact that Tallis would lose one of his eyes near the end of the film.
- Super-Soldier: Tallis, and most of his comrades. Being trained from childhood to fight and having cybernetic eyes, they are explicitly described as the last hope when all other forces have failed. They fail too at first, but Tallis manages to save the day even when the rest are dead, with only one person to help him.
- Sword Fight: The final showdown between Tallis and the Super Drone. Tallis wins by scoring a Diagonal Cut.
- Taking You with Me: As part of the distraction for the climactic Storming the Castle, Tallis wires a truckload of explosives for Colonel Norton's A.I.-controlled minigun to set off if it's overrun by Drones, with full understanding that it's going to be destroyed alongside the enemy. The A.I. accepts it and when it inevitably does get surrounded by Drones, it sets off the bomb gleefully.
- Talking Weapon:
- Tallis' M16 machine gun, named Angel, is a sci-fi example with an AI voice installed in her system, allowing her to chit-chat back and forth with Tallis throughout the film. Yes, the talking machine gun is an actual character.
- Later on in the film, Tallis managed to retrieve Colonel Norton's gattling gun, which turns out to have the same AI system installed, is entirely sentient, and talks with the baritone voice of Keith David.
- Toplessness from the Back: The Girl sponge bathes herself wearing only panties as Tallis watches with her seen from the back, and her breasts are shown too from the side while doing this.
- Training Montage: Shortly after Tallis and the Girl survived a drone assault together, Tallis has to train her on fighting and shooting. Which is somewhat unnecessary, given how in the earlier shootout scene she seems perfectly capable of kicking ass without his teaching.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Tallis finds out some human technicians are willingly aiding the drones (they helped to create them). A man he speaks with believes they will usher in "nirvana" as perfect, orderly beings. Wiping out most humans to do so isn't something he cares about apparently if a utopia is achieved.
- We Can Rule Together: Prior to their final confrontation, the Super Drone offers Tallis this as an option. It doesn't work.
