Evolver

Evolver (1995)

Runtime: 91 minutes

Directed by: Mark Rosman 

Starring: Ethan Embry, Cassidy Rae, Cindy Pickett, John de Lancie, the voice of... William H. Macy!

From: Trimark

Another edition of “movies I hadn’t seen since my kid/teen years of the 90’s” is here and thankfully, Evolver (viewed on Tubi and NOT on YouTube; every rip on the latter is edited a bit for content) is as silly yet fun 90’s B-movie cheese as I recalled. The cast featured some familiar names: Ethan Embry (still during his Ethan Randall days), Cindy Pickett, John de Lancie, Paul Dooley… but the most famous name was one I had no clue provided a voice until a few days ago.

You see, speaking the dialogue of the titular Evolver robot (a wheeled robot that appeared to be like 2 1/2 feet-i.e. 92 centimeters tall) was… WILLIAM H. MACY. Of course, this was pre-fame for him; as Berry Gordon’s The Last Dragon was (unfortunately) never seen until a few years ago, this would have been my first experience with him. I never would have thought at the time that the dude voicing the robot would be a big name and highly-respected actor.

It has a wacky premise: Embry hacks a national laser tag contest so he can win a small robot that plays games of “laser tag” at home… it shoots out foam bullets, you see. Not only is it funny in 2025 to see an AI robot that (natch) turns evil and starts killing “for real” via 90’s tech, it first maps the house exactly like a Roomba does. You don’t want to scrutinize the logistics of the plot too hard-such as why a company would offer such a robot to a random family because of laser tag-and a horrible by 2025 standards scene is Embry and his horndog friend attempting to use Evolver to, ahem… film surreptitiously in the girls’ locker room of their high school for the other boys of the school! That’s regrettable.

But yes, other than those moments, Evolver was fun to me as a teen and still fun now. While there’s little blood to speak of, the mayhem was enjoyable. Decent characters, some nice setpieces, a quality robot, VR effects in a few scenes that were modern for 30 years ago-trust me, I remember-and a final act full of incident meant that this was a good time. To echo the thoughts of others, this was like a kids movie--featuring at least half a dozen F-bombs & other cursing, murder, & an eye injury, along with that scene straight out of Porky’s in the girls’ locker room.

If you’re a youth seeing this for the first time today the charm might be lost on you. On the other hand, if you’re old like me and have those childhood memories of the time… a shame that Evolver (the robot made recordings on "optical discs") never made it past the DVD era.