I've always had a problem with sci-fi flicks that try to give an interpretation of the future, watching Time Machine i almost choked on a popcorn when i saw the main character walk around in year thirty something something, and people were still riding around on regular bikes. For gods sake guys, use some imagination, at least give us those nifty tunnel highways that we've seen in Futurama, or maybe some teleportation that was introduced by Star Trek in the 70's. 

Every sci-fi filmmaker wants to constantly be on the edge with ideas, a fact that Spielberg (among others) is pretty aware of. However the problem comes into play when you don't have enough references, meaning that the research is lacking. Ideally one should look at earlier work from the genre before implementing an technical aspect in the movie. The Matrix and Minority Report are good examples of when the moviemakers did their research and really fought through a bunch of ideas before they started making the sci-fi. Tom Cruise standing pointing around on the liquid screen both fascinating and not too far fetched, the result is that it works.

A good idea would be to not only look at earlier work, but also look at the current technical world, only then can one answer some of these questions.

• What’s been done?
• What worked / didn't work?
• Why it worked / didn't work?
• What gadgets are on the market today?
• What's to come in the near future?
  

On the other hand, the genre is called science fiction, so stuff that works falls into the "science" category and the crap into "fiction".

Breaking the plot of a movie into singular words is usually a good way to find out if it’s worth watching or not. I’m saying "usually" because in the case of "Runaway" this technique doesn’t work. Seriously, reading Tom Selleck, Science Fiction and Gene Simmons, doesn’t quite make it anything remotely close to Must see TV. Anyways, this movie is an exception to the "Stick with Magnum P.I Moustacheboy!!!"-rule, some way or another Tom Selleck managed to pull this one off. "Runaway" is a pretty nice movie that's set in the future but still stays grounded with nifty up-to-date gadgets.the world could open their eyes for it.

Everything from crop harvesting to household cleaning is done by mechanical robots. In the spirit of Terminator, robots and humans don't necessarily get along; something is bound to go wrong sooner or later. The title of the movie is based on the special police unit that Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) is a part of; The “Runaway-team” is called in every time a robot goes bananas.

The story starts off when a household robot shoots and kills several members of the family that owns the unit. Jack is brought in to disable the device, a task that he manages to perform after some minor action sequences. But in the aftermath he notices that the robot didn't malfunction at all, it had actually been modified with a more complex microprocessor, this in turn leads them to a crazed techno freak Dr. Charles Luther (Gene Simmons, yeah, the dude from "Kiss").

Luther is a robot-mastermind who has developed several robots that have a higher level of A.I than the common models. Among the favourites are the killer-spider-robots that shoot out acid and/or electrify their victims, and the gun that uses thermal patterns to find its target, meaning that Luther can shoot around corners and even let the bullet travel up through a crowd of people.

There isn't much more to the plot, Jack tries to hunt down Luther, and Luther in turn starts stalking Jack, In short one can say that The hunter becomes the hunted (damn, I hate that line, sounds like a trailer for a bad bad bad movie). Sure there are some subplots, but nothing important. What is important however is how this flick moves along, it's not fast paced but it still holds a certain level of thrilling moments. A fact that I view as interesting is that Runaway isn't totally outdated, this has a connection to the comments I made earlier; The movie never goes to far with the technological gadgets.

I think I’ve only seen two movies starring Gene Simmons; the first was Runaway and the second being Never too young to die. In Runaway he is the driving force throughout the movie, his mystical eyes and chilling lines complete the movie. Tom Sellecks performance is as usual Normal. One of the national networks runs this movie at least once a year, and i manage to catch it every time, and i still have yet to get bored by watching it.