Scanners III: Puissance maximum

Opening with a Christmas party in which a scanner shows off his powers with unexpectedly tragic results, this second sequel to David Cronenberg's 'Scanners' begins on a chilling note. Things only get more interesting as one of the party guests soon has to use her scanning abilities to fend off muggers, which results in massive headaches (having avoided scanning in so long) with a possible cure in an experimental nicotine patch style of sorts. After this promising start though, the plot soon derails as the patch as the side effect of turning her into a homicidal megalomaniac, similar to Raoul Max Trujillo in 'Scanners II'. Lead actress Liliana Komorowska manages to chew the scenery even more so than Trujillo though in such a wildly exaggerated performance that it is draining to watch. There are also a host of ill-defined supporting characters who inexplicably wear sunglasses all the time (to stop accidentally scanning??) and as she manages to control others through television sets, her powers end up more fantastical than pseudo-scientific as in the first two films. 'Scanners 3' does, however, deserve some points for presenting a more original plot than Part 2. There is also quite a bit of humour in the mix (forcing an obnoxious date to dance; waking up in a morgue) and the special effects are uniformly excellent, but this is a hard film to get excited about.

A young female scanner turns from a sweet young thing into a murderous, power-crazed villain after she takes an experimental drug developed by her father. Her brother, who is also a scanner, is the only one powerful enough to stop her.

We start out with the standard good and evil plot, brother against sister... but, in all fairness, this is a plot structure that works. From there, it actually gets much more creative, introducing the use of Eastern meditation to control the scanning and the use of TV to more widely broadcast scanning.

Some memorable moments are here, too, including the mind-control dance scene, the Taiwanese boxing and plenty of firefights and explosions, including an arm that flies off.

As with "Scanners II", this definitely could have been a series, even more than the last film. The ideas developed here really set up a broader picture of good scanners against bad ones, and how such powers could be used not just on a combat level, but to actually infiltrate and dominate society. There is much potential.

Of the five "Scanners" movies that have been made to date, "Scanners III: The Takeover" is the least of the series. That is not to say that it isn't fun to watch; if you like B movies, this particular one does have some entertaining elements. It's pretty well made for what was a low budget, there are some pleasing splatter moments here and there, and the core of the story does have some intriguing idea that had potential. However, the actual execution of the story does have some unsatisfying aspects to it. Even though the movie runs only 95 or so minutes, you can really feel the padding; it didn't have to run as long as it did. The expansion of the powers of the scanners gets downright silly and unbelievable at times, even though this is a B movie. And the occasional attempts at humor run all over the map, ranging from being low key effective to downright embarrassing. If you liked the other entries of this series, you'll probably find enough to enjoy here, but you'll still think that the screenplay (by four writers!) should have had some serious rewrites before filming started.

I remember throwing in the towel on the Scanners series after being particularly underwhelmed by Scanners 2: The New Order, and subsequently kept my distance when Scanners 3: The Takeover, Scanner Cop and Scanner Cop 2 (aka Scanners: The Showdown) all appeared on the video rental shelves. Maybe I was a little premature on calling time on the series though, as finally catching up with it nearly thirty years later, Scanners 3: The Takeover unexpectedly turned out to be lots of fun.

Colin Fox (star of the legendary Canadian horror soap opera 'Strange Paradise') essentially has the Patrick McGoohan role in this one, playing the scientist father to a pair of scanner siblings. The son, Alex grows up to go all Rambo 3, attempting to find himself by living among Buddhist monks. Daughter, Helena on the other hand becomes the Guinea Pig in her father's experiments which transform her from the meek and mousy type to a megalomaniac vixen who uses her scanner powers to climb the corporate ladder.

After two sombre sequels, Scanners 3 really beats you about the head with the silly stick, as naughty Helena uses her scanner powers to make a chauvinistic colleague perform a striptease at a well-to-do restaurant, forces a talk show host and his star guest to make horny fools of themselves on live TV, while a pigeon learns the hard way that it is not wise to poop on a scanner. Helena also has male scanner followers, who once mobilised, start dressing like prohibition era gangsters, and an oversexed nurse scanner who seems to think she is acting in a parody of a porn film.

Considering how tonally different this all is to the first Scanners film, there is a surprising amount of callbacks to early Cronenberg movies here. The flirty behavior on the live talk show recalls the James Woods/Debbie Harry antics of Videodrome, dead bodies end up in a garbage truck à la Rabid, and on the basis of this and Rabid (original and remake), Canadians must really have it in for men dressed as Father Christmas.

As Helena, polish actress Liliana Komorowska drops into the film with all the subtlety of a megaton bomb, playing a mixture of Joan Collins and Donald Trump, while sporting an accent so thick that it feels like she was on a one woman war against the English language. The long-of-name Komorowska easily overshadows the bland 1990s pretty boy playing her sibling/adversary, as the series ventures into the era of male ponytails, corporate villains, erotic thrillers and yes even kick-boxer movies.

During the Christmas party in her apartment, Joyce Stone (Valérie Valois) welcomes the stepbrothers Helena Monet (Liliana Komorowska) and Alex Monet (Steve Parrish), who is her boyfriend. Alex's best friend asks him to demonstrate his abilities of scanner and during his demonstration, Alex is distracted by a guest and accidentally kills his friend. Alex is considered non-guilty but decides to travel to a monastery in Thailand to learn to control his powers.

Two years later, Joyce and Helena are attacked by a gang in an alley and Helena activates her ability of scanner to save them. She has a severe migraine associated to the sound of voices and her stepfather Elton Monet (Colin Fox) shows an experimental EPH-3 patch that he is developing in his company to be used in scanners. Helena offers to be the guinea pig, but he does not accept the offer since he is still studying the side effects. During the night, Helena opens his wallet and secretly uses the EPH-3. Immediately her migraine disappears and she feels good; however her personality changes to an evil person. She humiliates her boss Mark Dragon (Peter Wright), who is the owner of the TV network where she works, and later she destroys him to assume the control of the television; she kills Elton to assume the control of his company and research; she kills Dr. Baumann (Harry Hill), who conducted painful experiments on her when she was a teenager. Meanwhile Alex's lawyer and friend Michael (Daniel Pilon) travels to Thailand to warn Alex about the changes in Helena but he is murdered by a scanner sent by Helena to follow him. The Monk (Sith Sekae) gives a final training to Alex and he returns home. Will Alex succeed to control Helena?

"Scanners III: The Takeover" is not a bad movie as indicated in the IMDb Users Rating; actually it is a good sequel of Scanners. The plot is well constructed through a tight screenplay; the story has a great villain; the acting is reasonable for a movie directly released on video. The transformation of a sweet woman into a powerful villain is a great idea and there is also humor, like when the gang is thrown into the garbage truck or her boss dancing in the restaurant; or Alex waking up and walking in the morgue. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Scanners III - O Duelo Final ("Scanners III: The Final Duel")