Sid 6.7, la máquina asesina

The first great film for Russell Crowe, and a very interesting film to say the least. Cyber culture is rarely ever depicted in movies, but this was one of those films which brought some of these underground tendencies to light. What was even more interesting was how evil Sid 6.7 was. Crowe did an excellent job of portraying the demented cyber villain. I especially liked Denzel Washington, who always manages to be believable in his role when he doesn't try to be a ‘soul brotha.' Granted, the cinematography was pretty average as well as the music, but then again, the performance of the two main stars really made this film a winner.

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."

For the most part, "Virtuosity" is basically another virtual reality-themed movie so full of action that it almost hurts. But interestingly enough, there is a little bit of a plot here. Denzel Washington plays Lt. Parker Barnes, who has to help find SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe), a virtual serial killer who has escaped into the real world in 1999 LA.

Yes, that certainly sounds like it could degenerate into the kind of garbage that Hollywood usually turns out. Much of the movie is in fact vaguely reminiscent of movies like "Demolition Man". But maybe we can interpret the movie as looking at the dangers of letting technology get too powerful, like what "2001: A Space Odyssey" looked at. Obviously, this isn't even remotely in the same league as that one, but given that it was released in 1995, it almost seems like a prediction of how computer-centric the world would become.

Not a masterpiece by any stretch - both Washington and Crowe have done much better work (and now they're both Oscar winners) - but worth seeing, if only once.

..you know you're in trouble.

Russell Crowe is joyfully over the top as an escaped criminal from cyber-world. He makes the most of it, and its a good thing, too, since the rest of the people onscreen are so deadly boring that his coming to 'our' world in order to destroy seems like a good idea.

Denzel is at his most humorless and looks silly in a leather cop outfit - he looks like he's going to a Halloween party thrown by Ian McKellan. He is recruited to find Sid 6.7, who was inexplicably brought to this world by evil little Stephen Spinella, and kill him. Denzel had confronted Sid 6.7 in cyberworld and they didn't exactly share a laugh. Sid is many criminals all in one body, and by no small coincidence, one of them killed Denzel's wife and child.

Its very violent and even sadistic and you've seen it before, and if you didn't, you didn't miss out on that much. Crowe is a like "The Terminator" but with better clothes. Denzel is like Linda Hamilton who was equally one-note. Kelly Lynch is along for the ride, along with Louise Fletcher, William Fitchner, Kevin J. O'Connor and William Forsythe.

3/10, all for Rusty's chewing of the scenery. Someone had to keep the audience interested, so he did more than anyone else involved.

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.