The Tower (1993)
A mix-up with a security card causes a malevolent building to try and kill an employee on his first day at work.
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This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
A waste of 90 minutes of my life
A lot of fun.
It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Unfairly trashed little telemovie I feel. Sure its derivative and non too brilliant in its execution (as it were). Simplistic tale of a computer techo who is taken on in a high-rise that is the domain of the computer-in-charge.....a la GREMLINS 2. The computer takes an instant dislike to Reiser and after multiple "violations" marks him for "deletion"Sure, just about everything you see has been done before...but hell its still entertaining in a B-Grade, got-nothing-else-to-do-anyway kinda way! OK, the script is crap....the fx somewhere between acceptable and less-than-average but Reiser's infectious attitude keeps the thing's head above water!A solid 5 which makes the thing not a total loss. Watch it, have a laugh!
This is a movie where you constantly will be commenting about how stupid and unrealistic one scene after another is. It could have been a good movie, but it just gets too enoying, because you keep seing a computer doing the most stupid things, that no computer would, and people do things that doesn't make sence. They seem to have programmed the computer to kill intruders and vandalists!!! Watch it with friends so you can have a laugh at it.
Even given the fact that it's a made-for-TV affair, the execution, the screenplay, and the acting of the 1993 Fox-TV movie THE TOWER are inscrutably inane. The premise is certainly not the problem; the idea of a computer in charge of security in an L.A. high-rise going after its occupants is, in fact, dead-on perfect.The problem is, however, that even the best stories, if executed either poorly or in a mediocre fashion (the latter in this case), lose their suspenseful effectiveness. Paul Reiser, of TV's "Mad About You", is quite the obnoxious one as a tenant of the building whose smart mouth and list of security violations makes him a target for CAS, the building's security computer (voice of Dee Dee Wilkinson). What we have then is a film whose malevolent computer is basically a more sinister female counterpart to HAL from Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and a setting clearly inspired by THE TOWERING INFERNO and DIE HARD, but whose execution couldn't hope to compete with those masterpieces unless a talent like Steven Spielberg was in the director's seat, and Michael Crichton or Arthur C. Clarke wrote the dialogue. Despite all this, I give THE TOWER a rating of '6' for the premise, as well as some pretty nifty special effects.
A cheap, dumb, derivative and mostly unintentionally funny hybrid of sci-fi and disaster flicks that nonetheless manages to entertain, IF you're not too demanding. Would be a prime candidate for a feature on "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" if that show was still on the air. The technology and effects in the movie are already hilariously out of date, like some bad TV-movie from the 1970s. Some prime heckle-worthy dialogue and situations abound. All in all, amateurish fun for everyone!