First off, let's get my bias out the way, I'm a die-hard fan of this movie, and this review is definitely intended to get the reader to give it a chance.
The film is riddled with industrial (music) culture references and cameos, and if you're into that scene, there's a certain sick thrill about seeing Carl McCoy as the zone trooper, and seeing footage of proto-industrial performance artist Monte Cazazza in this. The general tone and ambiance of the whole piece of wonderfully clichéd cyberpunk.
And that's really the interesting thing about this film. While there are a plethora of terrible sci-fi slasher flicks out there desperately claiming the 'cyberpunk' moniker, here is a film that claims to be nothing more than a sci-fi slasher flick, and manages to be somewhat of a pulp-cyberpunk classic instead.
The whole movie is a mood piece, designed more for its ambiance and the feel of its world, than particularly flashy action sequences or on-screen 'wow' factor. It's meant to be a genre movie, but it manages to feel like a 'serious' film under the influence of some heavy drugs. Not a bad thing really, but your tastes may disagree. Personally I've always liked that sunset-filtered-through pollution look that Bladerunner was infamous for, and hardware utilizes the same rather well.
Genre movie it may be, but it shows far less cheese coating and terrible acting than any of the current glut of genre movies being produced for the Sci-Fi channel. In fact the whole movie feels more like a good pulpy cyberpunk novella than a genre movie by far. Calling the movie 'mood music for rivetheads' isn't really an insult to it.
