EVE OF DESTRUCTION

   Film (1991). Orion. Dir Duncan Gibbons, starring Gregory Hines, Renee Soutendijk. Screenplay Gibbons, Yale Udoff. 98 mins. Colour.

   Soutendijk is good, both as Eve, a Defense Department scientist, and as Eve VIII, the military ROBOT that she creates in her own image. Armed with endless firepower and a nuclear bomb, the robot destroys the men Eve secretly hates, several male chauvinists and the police who try to stop her. Some critics see Eve VIII as a female "terminator" (The TERMINATOR (1984), but she also recalls the Id Monster of FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956). EOD's supposed FEMINISM is unsubtle and suspect: a scene in which Eve VIII first teases and then castrates a loutish man is so extreme that it may in fact be intentionally misogynist. Nevertheless, Eve VIII - beautiful, elegant, stony-faced, murderous and bulletproof - is one of the most effective villains of recent years. Hines's performance as a military troubleshooter is mediocre.

   MK