synopsis : a humorless police officer's life changes when he befriends a super-smart , super-adorable golden retriever named einstein and a cute , young blond scientist . 
unfortunately , einstein shares a psychic link with a bigfoot-sized ape-creature trained by the blond scientist to be an unstoppable killing machine , and this rogaine-nightmare is loose and after the dog and the girl . 
meanwhile , a group of white , chain-smoking , gun-toting nsa agents in sunglasses and business suits tries to kill all the other characters in the movie . 
comments : watchers reborn , a cheaply made direct-to-video turkey , is the fourth sequel to the first film version of dean koontz's bestselling novel watchers . 
technically , this should have been called watchers v , but it seems that this cycle of horror movies , much like many other sequel-crazy film series , has decided to drop the numbers from the titles . 
 ( even the star trek movies dropped the numbers from their titles after star trek vi . ) 
the makers of watchers reborn probably want to fool unsuspecting video rental customers into thinking this might be a good movie instead of a crappy fifth installment of a film series which should have died a long time ago . 
this really isn't a good movie . 
have you ever rented a movie and recieved a sinking feeling about it when you watched the previews preceding the feature presentation ? 
well , any hope a viewer may have had , perhaps because he is a fan of novelist dean koontz or actor mark hamill , will be dashed by the time he's seen the trailers tagged on before the beginning of watchers reborn . 
they're awful . 
these commercials cover films like a strange stripper movie called shadow dancer , some weird crap about a dead indian , teens , and wolves , and an " action " movie called detonator starring scott baio . 
scott baio ! 
what idiot dreamed this movie up ? 
after surviving these abysmal trailers , the person finally gets to watch the movie he rented : watchers reborn . 
 " maybe it won't be * that * bad " he may say to himself . 
 " perhaps , just perhaps , the bottom-of-the-barrel film fluff advertised before it is greatly misleading . 
watchers reborn , after all , is based on that cool book dean koontz wrote a decade ago . 
it stars mark hamill -- luke skywalker himself from that terrific star wars trilogy . 
lou rawls is even in the mix ! " 
unfortunately , the force is certainly no longer with mark hamill ( he looks very sick here ) , and this movie shares only basic plot elements with watchers , the book . 
the latter is really too bad . 
koontz is a hack writer producing way too many thrillers for his own good , but he is still my favorite hack writer . 
koontz has a writing style which is succinct and suspenseful . 
people who read many of his books , however , often complain of repetitive plot devices . 
it's definately not a koontz book if there isn't ( 1 ) a psychic , ( 2 ) a super-intelligent dog , or ( 3 ) a psychotic killer who likes ripping out people's eyeballs . 
watchers has all three devices , which may explain why it's arguably the most popular of koontz's books . 
the idea behind koontz's novel , though highly implausible , is very interesting . 
basically , a biological war machine is created : a smart dog can be released in battle , track down its target , and then relay the target's position , psychically , to a large creature designed to kill in hand-to-hand combat . 
silly but kind of neat too . 
i'm sorry . 
i don't mean to ramble on about matters not directly linked to watchers reborn , the movie . 
i suppose i just don't want to talk about the movie itself . 
this turkey is really cheesy . 
no one in this movie can act , including mark hamill , and it's difficult seeing the aged luke skywalker stumble around trying to be the hero . 
the cheese factor is only increased when he's involved in an implied sex scene with the blond biologist / geneticist / zoologist / whatever-the-f * * k-she's-supposed-to-be whom he befriends . 
mercifully , the filmmakers opted not to do nudity . 
to be honest , the only half-convincing actor in the film is the golden retriever who plays einstein . 
you know a movie is bad when a dog outacts all of its human counterparts . 
i find it difficult to relate how laughable the action sequences are in this movie . 
and the creature ! 
yes , the creature out after poor einstein is some guy in a furry suit and a mask which poorly imitates the werewolves in the howling . 
this creature is shot about 500 , 000 times , but it's okay . 
the creature has the ability to kill people by swinging his arms around and pushing . 
oh , he can also rip body parts off , allowing for many scenes of fake hands and arms being thrown around . 
cheesy gore . 
that's another main element of watchers reborn . 
it has many bloody scenes which are thoroughly unconvincing and only increase the film's campiness rather than its suspense . 
ultimately , i gave watchers reborn a star and a half because bad horror / sci-fi film buffs may get a few kicks out of the film's silliness ( though this film will tax even their patience -- it's an 83 minute film , but it feels like four hours ) . 
also , i hate to admit , i have survived far worse than this . 
anyone who has sat through the christopher lambert and natasha henstridge debacle known as adrenalin : fear the rush will know what i mean . 
finally , i couldn't help but think that watchers reborn would work well as " bot fodder " for the creative folks behind one of my all-time favorite shows , " mystery science theater 3000 . " 
this thought alone helped me survive watchers reborn with a smile on my face . 
rated r , watchers reborn contains dozens of blood-spattered bodies and unconvincing gore . 
it also has violence , obviously . 
i wouldn't recommend it for the little kids , but i'm sure even young teens would make it through this movie okay . 
instead of watching this film , however , i recommend reading koontz's book . 
trust me , it'll be time much , much better spent .