_Black Magic M-66_
This is _Short Circuit_ crossed with _The Terminator_.
You can watch this on Hidive, but it's also on YouTube:
We open on a plane crash. They go down in a forested area and spill out two coffin-shaped containers bearing the label "M-66".
We cut to our protagonist's tiny apartment: she has just received a message on her computer. She grabs her camera and heads out.
Troops secure the are, but it's too late. Two M-66 military robots, en route to testing, have escaped.
These are supposed to be prefect military machines; why didn't they hide their containers and cover their tracks.
And who is their target?
Sybel, our videojournalist, is recording from a distance.
Her assistant notes that she's separated from her husband; married to her work.
Her distance mic picks up the military plans to confront the robots. She tries to get to the location first.
The military, meanwhile, collects one Professor Matthew, robot designer. He's mad about flaws he's found in robot systems.
Hikers are shocked as a dead bear falls in front of them. But what could take out a bear?
Sybel and her partner Leakey are captured by the military.
Professor Matthew is very upset that the M-66 have has the prototype targeting program loaded.
The M-66 attack! They are android-types, but with outrageous strength and joints that move in ways humans wouldn't.
Whoever did the choreography here did a nice job. It's half kung fu, half movements no human could make.
Anyway, jeeps are flung and nameless soldiers are killed. They take out one of the M-66, but the other escapes.
Sybel and Leakey escape in the confusion.
Professor Matthew is sure they will be targeting his granddaughter; she was the target in the test program.
Sybel has recognized the Professor from prior news coverage. She foes to his house, but the M-66 has already been there and the place is wrecked.
There is one thing of value: Ferris, the Professor's granddaughter left a message saying she was out with friends, and where.
Sybel is now literally the only person who knows where Ferris is and that she's in danger.
The military discover that the crash was enemy action.
Sybel reaches Ferris just moments before the M-66. They flee, leading it into traps set by the military.
The M-66 plays dead to allow it to break out of containment when the military try to switch it off and the chase begins again.
This is where we get to the elevator scene.
Sybel, Farris, and the M-66 are in an ascending elevator and they are holding it at bay with an electromagnet.
There's a shot where the camera pans around the elevator from M-66's eye view as it circles them.
This was released in 1987!
Full rotating camera done with hand drawn cell animation!
Nowadays, you would render the background with a computer model. The effort involved here must have been massive! For just a few moments of effect.
When they get ahead, the M-66 triggers a partial collapse of the building to get at them.
Scrabbling away, throwing whatever they can get to slow it down, they are left on a slim outcrop.
A mistriggered explosive goes off at the wrong time and the M-66 falls off the building.
Just before the floor collapses, they are scooped up by an Army helicopter.
The military recover the M-66 and disable it.
In a fit of niceness, the commanding officer lets Sybel go rather than disappearing her.
The incident is covered up as a terrorist bombing.
That's pretty much it.
So, what's my takeaway?
Well, this is an OVA from the 1980s, and is exactly what you'd expect from that.
There's nothing here that you need to see, but there's some nice fight choreography and some nice monster chase scenes.
And the elevator scene. I'm no expert, but they must have poured mountains of effort into that.
But it's just outclassed by modern production methods. Moving camera shots are still hard enough that they're a treat today, but the technology had advanced so much it's not funny.
Of course you get retro 80s aesthetics and gratuitous OVA nudity.
I feel like the team that worked on this really loved it.
It's definitely an artifact from a prior age though.
On the other hand, it's less than an hour long. You could watch it to kill time.
