The Tower
The Tower
| 16 August 1993 (USA)
The Tower Trailers

A mix-up with a security card causes a malevolent building to try and kill an employee on his first day at work.

Reviews
TheBlueHairedLawyer

Tony is a really nice guy, but after being pressured to get a "real job", he tries to ignore his love of music to be a businessman in the world's smartest building, a high-tech skyscraper called Intercorp. Within the skyscraper a supercomputer named CAS controls the entire building. When Tony messes with his ID card and it confuses CAS, CAS begins trying to exterminate Tony by hunting him down, accidentally killing a security guard and a CEO in the process. Now Tony is stuck in the tower, along with his childhood friend, now his co-worker.I don't understand why this has such bad reviews! Sure it's a little outdated and low-budget, but it's a great TV movie thriller, comedic and suspenseful, without needing to rely on bad CGI effects and fart jokes to be entertaining. CAS is an uncanny resemblance to GlaDOS from Portal, a homicidal computing system with many sarcastic jokes and pranks to play on Tony. The soundtrack, which is that corporate 80's/90's keyboard synthesized stuff, sounds pretty cool. The Tower is outdated slightly even for its time but can still be funny today. The acting was decent enough and although there were a few sexual jokes from CAS, the film remains not rude enough to be too annoying to watch. It certainly isn't boring, it has a moment or two that drags on but is still thrilling from beginning to end and doesn't quit. I personally really enjoyed it, and thought it was far better than that Hunger Games crud that's so popular right now. Don't judge The Tower just on reviews, check it out for yourself to see what you think, you might be surprised.

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Marvin Wright

I saw another version of this movie about 8 years before this one was released. There was a computer named Lola that was absorbing human energy and trapped a bunch of people inside a building. The newer version 1994 differed greatly from the original but the same theme was used. I like movies where computers take over some of my favorites are Demon Seed and Colusus the Forbin Project. I think one day computers will be smarter than humans possibly in our lifetime. I mean in my fathers day going to the moon was science fiction but today its an every day occurrence, these movies show the dangers of science and technologies continual progress and are to be noted.

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uds3

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!

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virek213

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.

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