Virtuosity

Virtual Reality gets a look, following in the footsteps of "The Lawnmower Man." If you saw "The Matrix"(99) and were wondering where you glimpsed the VR scenery years earlier, it may have been in this pic. Here, Denzel gets to briefly run around inside a VR world, chasing after virtual killer Russell Crowe, known as Sid 6.7 (very close to 6.66, isn't it?). Sid 6.7 is the latest computer program, a conglomeration of about 200 serial killers & mass murderers, and so advanced it's virtually self-aware. The bulk of the picture takes place in the real world, to which Sid 6.7 manages to escape to with the help of very advanced nanotechnology. I believe this was supposed to take place slightly in the future (1999), but from our perspective, it's old hat and square. Everything looks outmoded and just old, except the strangely hi-tech VR and nanites.

It's also interesting, from the modern perspective, to view an early role of Crowe's, before he hit the A-List. He doesn't have much to play with here. His character doesn't have the luxury of falling back on deep psychological reasons for his murderous ways, because he's inhuman. He's simply the latest software given locomotion in the semblance of a human body. He's programmed to be the way he is - there's no choice involved on his part. There's a brief mention of his program evolving once in the real world, but there's no actual evidence of that. Once in the real world, it's a simplistic chase & destroy mission, with Denzel the only one in the city trained to stop him. Denzel, just getting on the A-List a couple of years earlier, is standard action hero here, driven by a brutal tragedy from before the film begins. The motivations for a couple of key supporting characters are suspect; the designer of Sid 6.7, for example, turns out to be almost as psychotic, but it's hard to believe no one noticed this before (was he influenced by the software?). Fichtner, as a government aide, has the most thankless role, as an idiotic bureaucrat. The child actress playing the daughter of Lynch's character went on to teenage bombshell roles in TV series, the latest being "Charmed."

This film is just plain silly. It catches Denzel Washington in one of his rare ultra-violence impulses (like Training Day). Newsflash: Washington is a premier actor wasted on a simple-mined character that just about second-rate actor in Hollywood could have played.

However, the hilarious, over the top performance of Russell Crowe as a cyborg gone berserk is a combination of Max Headroom and the rogue robot in Blade Runner. He steals the film, but cannot rescue the lame script and corny dialogue. Of course, being 30 years old, the film is a bit dated from a scientific standpoint, so we must accept the science that was available in 1995. Entertaining at times.

You can't help but like Crowe's gleeful portrayal of a schizophrenic nano-bot serial killer in this ridiculous film, and with futuristic fascists, pervey programmers and a bucket loads of virtual reality cyber nonsense, this should really be a winner in the style of The Demolition Man or the Robocop series. But where other films in the genre have used such tools as wit and plot to keep the more intelligent of the viewers amused, this film, um, hasn't.

The script is terrible. The acting (excluding Crowe, who only gets away with it thanks to a camp smile and some fortunate direction) is wooden. And the plot is illogical and frustrating.

So finally, after decades of futuristic scientists proclaiming that virtual reality will someday be here, it's here - sort of. Hollywood's always been a midwife for technology between the science industry and the common man, and in the area of virtual reality it's given us "Johhny Mnemonic" and this actioner, starring Denzel Washington.

Basic plot is this: The police have been using virtual reality as a training method, to test recruits. Before they use it on real cops, though, they draft crooks out of prison to act as guinea pigs. This is where Washington comes in. A former cop (how convenient), Washington's been rotting in jail for years. So the cops ask him to volunteer to be a part of the experiment, and of course he agrees - but the computer he's going to be downloaded into has other plans. The 'virtual' cops are supposed to face this tough criminal in the system, you see, but the computer's decided to combine all of the nasty characteristics of famous real-life killers - and then download itself into a real, sentient being (Russell Crowe). And of course it's up to our man Washington to save the day.

So there you have it, folks. It's a standard cops n robbers plot moved ahead a few centuries to take advantage of modern technology. Of course, it's set in the future, which here is portrayed as busy, grimy, a bit crime-riddled.. Hmm, a lot like the present, come to think of it, and not very inventive. And the effects are nothing special, either; you'd think with virtual reality being the centerpiece you'd see some dazzling special effects. Not really.

The cast is good, and Crowe turns in a solid (if a bit hammy, but most bad guys are, aren't they?) performance. Washington is no better or worse than usual, which means the real culprit is the script here. Do yourself a favor and wait for a two-for-one night at your video store to see this one.

Virtuosity is by no means a great movie or a good movie. It is barely above average. That though is because of Russell Crowe's character: SID 6.7 who possesses over 150 serial killer personalities. He is just supposed to be used to train police but he escapes from his virtual reality to the reality. That sounds pretty interesting and this premise could be taken into many different directions especially since he is such a complex character you could go so many different way going about to make this film. Though this movie did not take the worst direction it did not take the best one. This movie went for pure action and no real drama or meaningful message. Now that is OK but it lacked in doing this because of the: The directing which was average by Brett Leonard. He made this into a very exciting TV movie which it is not. He had two very talented actors in Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe yet he was not able to generate the excitement and fast pace feeling that is needed to make a good action movie.

The writing is also at fault too. The writing was not great here. It seemed to have a lot of overused themes such as the cop trying to retain the high status that he used too have and also the idiot cops getting in the way. That is also OK but the dialog made this interesting idea into a movie that was not so unfamiliar. Not much originality in here despite having such a unique character. That is always the script's fault whenever this happens. The writing and directing just made this movie so frustrating to watch.

You cannot blame the acting. You could see that Denzel Washington, already an established actor at that time, and Russell Crowe, not established, really tried to push this movie forward. Yet there was little to work with which made them look really average.

This movie could have been much better if it was made more into a action/drama about the our inner battles. Considering that SID 6.7 had 150 personalities the storyline of his character could have made him have a battle within himself. Now this was done to a minor level which really annoyed me. They are many other ideas or methods that could have really made this movie something but of course this did not happen. It went for cheap effects, an over used clichéd storyline with a little bit of a twist. That may work for some people but not for me.

I'am giving this movie a 6/10 rating because it had so much potential.