Grid Runners

Owww, man. This movie is funny. The villain Dante is probably one of the funniest villains I've ever seen in film. He can beat up anyone, he doesn't move his mouth when he speaks, makes feeble attempts to show emotion, has cheesy and hilarious lines. What more could you ask for? Probably a better movie, but we're looking at this one, right? Don "The Dragon" Wilson can take down almost anyone in this film, showing his energetic martial art skills but when it comes to the sex scene he provides the biggest laugh of them all. After taking down all sorts of evil punks, he sleeps with a beautiful woman he barely knows for 10 minutes, but lays there completely lifeless as she does all the work! Come on, Dragon, show a little energy next time! For a serious sci-fi movie, look elsewhere. For some laughs, you could do worse.

Why the UK title had to be changed to Grid Runners I'll never know, unless they were trying to cash in on the Jeff Minter Vic 20 game. Anyway, it doesn't matter - the film's terrible. Funny, but terrible.

Don "The Dragon" Wilson World Kickboxing Champion (as he's referred to in the credits) has so little charisma and acting ability that he must surely be the freakish love child of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, and it's not even as if the filmmakers compensate for that with any particularly dynamic action scenes - the fights are almost as rubbish as the actors. They pick up a bit after the shockingly bad opening scenes in which Don is harassed by men in pink and yellow spandex trousers, but not much.

The central story idea of AI constructs being "copied to living cells" is unoriginal but still interesting, or at least it would have been if the eventual story woven around it made the faintest bit of sense. Everything's either a cliche or happens for absolutely no reason - or both - until the film finally limps to an 'interesting' finale involving some of the worst special effects ever committed to film. Look at that helicopter go! Frame advance that little beauty! Yes please.

Needless to say that I had actually never heard about this 1995 action sci-fi movie titled "Virtual Combat", as I stumbled upon it by sheer, random luck here in 2023. But seeing that the movie had Don "The Dragon" Wilson on the cast list, of course I opted to sit down and give the movie a go.

The storyline in the movie, as written by William C. Martell, is pretty cheesy. You have an abundance of martial arts, goons in sleeveless shirts, pointless nudity and a rather generic low budget sci-fi script. And I am a bit amazed that Don Wilson actually would show up in something like this.

Not surprisingly, then the cast ensemble in "Virtual Combat" didn't exactly hold any particularly famous or established actors or martial artists on the cast list, aside from Don Wilson. The acting performances in the movie were rather sluggish, wooden and amateurish for a number of the cast.

The special effects in "Virtual Combat" were as you would expect from a low budget sci-fi movie, but oddly enough they were campy and cheesy enough to actually work in favor of the movie.

With "Virtual Combat" being an action movie, you have a good amount of martial arts and fight scenes throughout the course of the 87 minutes that the movie ran for. And it is actually the fight scenes that keep the movie afloat and keeps it semi-watchable. Though you're not in for a grand display of impressive martial arts.

This was movie was indeed rich in cheese, and as such I am sure that there is an audience out there. I must admit, though, that I prefer more properly enjoyable movies when I sit down to be entertained by a movie.

My rating of director Andrew Stevens' 1995 movie "Virtual Combat" lands on a three out of ten stars.

Why is it that virtual "x-rated video game" women can speak through their mouths but virtual fighting game champion Dante has to use a combination of telepathy and over dramatic facial expressions? I feel that either they needed to cast someone who looked more villain-like (Michael Bermardo's big brown doe eyes don't exactly strike fear in the hearts of well.. anyone except for maybe casting directors who consistently cast him as either a villain or a heroic 'bad boy'.) OR they needed to just let him use his real voice (and move his mouth), and maybe give him a costume that would not make him stick out like a sore thumb when walking down the street. (but of course this is the future and we must assume that bad fashion taste is considered the norm.)

Don Wilson stars as a cop who enjoys the occasional virtual reality fighting game, however things go wrong when the people behind the game decide to take virtual reality to a new level by making real people from the video game, okay actually they make the cybersex models as prototype but the main bad guy from the video game awakens and starts killing people and now the only man who can beat the guy is Don Wilson, who in the mean time falls in love with the cybersex model. Actually with all things considered my biggest confusion was trying to understand if the people brought over from virtual reality land, were robots, human, cyborgs or just some type of unidentified computer program. It doesn't matter since this is all just an excuse to watch one of the worst actors ever butcher dialog as if he were running a deli. Don Wilson's complete lack of charisma is the film's biggest flaw since one just doesn't like the guy, he's too goody-goody, his voice is too high pitched and doesn't look very impressive in the action sequences. What saves this bore-fest from my lowest rating is Athenia Massey who looks super hot in high cut outfits and who gets occasionally naked. Also on-board is Loren Avedon (A good martial artist), Stella Stevens and Michael Dorn as the main voice of the bad guy but their efforts are in vain as they are all concealed by the very bad acting of Wilson. Another flaw which is the film's biggest mistake is a lack of action, as we are asked to watch the story unfold but aside from Massey's nudity and maybe some unintentional amusements due to laughably unconvincing acting, there really is nothing of interest. This also extends to the action sequences in which are flatly choreographed, badly directed and completely drained of all possible excitement. Making this virtually unwatchable.

* out of 4-(Bad)