Hardwired

Ploughing the same furrow as conspiracy-style futuristic sci-fi thrillers as Spielberg's MINORITY REPORT, HARDWIRED is a science fiction film on a budget. Starring the less-than-stellar Cuba Gooding Jr. as an ordinary guy who almost dies in a car accident and is brought back to life thanks to the intervention of a sinister commercial organisation, this is slightly disappointing and intriguing in equal measure.

The most interesting part of the production are the sly digs at numerous subject matters, including the failings of the American healthcare system and the increasingly desperate efforts of modern-day advertisers. The sci-fi and action tropes are less successful, with a few cheesy CGI effects thrown into the mix, but the script is a little more intelligent than is the usual for the B-movie genre.

HARDWIRED also boasts a fine supporting role for the criminally underrated Michael Ironside, who gets the opportunity to sink his teeth into a decent character part for a change after years spent whiling away his time in Z-grade disaster flicks. There's also a good performance from the up-and-coming Tatiana Maslany, although the less said about Val Kilmer's bad guy the better; Kilmer is stiffer than a board here and his acting often painful.

Still, this is a film which turns out slightly better than I had expected, and the various mind-melding mind-control stuff is handled in such a way that's not original, but nevertheless entertaining. HARDWIRED is certainly no classic, but an efficient enough timewaster.

a very poor imitation of matrix and/or total recall or similar SiFi movies. though the Plot is not that bad , it is dragging too far, action is OK, acting in Cuba Gooding part and Ironside is good,Val Kilmer looks goofy though, other actors not very promising.

The sound track of the movie is annoying and out of place, it is like an Arabic belly dancing music imported right out from Cairo. by far the worst part of the movie is its sound track. at the end the score is kind of Indian drum combo with an Indian singer crying along very sadly.

all together it is a 'watchable movie.

Okay, yes. You've seen the material a thousand times from Freejack to Johnny Mneumonic to Total Recall to Matrix. This echoes both John Carpenter's, "They Live," and the more-recent "Gamer," with some of the feel of the original "Blade," attempted, but never achieved.

The action is awesome, well choreographed, and professionally executed throughout a Terminator-stylized storyline including the end of the world as we know it via robotics and a mad scientist portrayed disappointingly by Val Kilmer.

Mad scientists should be either raving mad, or insidiously fiendish. Kilmer's Virgil was full of high ideas with no moral center, but he utterly lacked the diabolism required to carry through such a plan. It was like he knew from the beginning that he was doomed to fail, and played the character thusly, failing to invest too much of himself in a doomed role. I wanted him to be Madmartigan vs. the kid from Real Genius, and instead, I got Craig Ferguson's Dr. Wagner of Lenny the Wonder Dog. To say the least, I was disappointed.

Decent on a rainy afternoon if there's nothing left in the house to clean. Otherwise, you could find something better to do with your time.

It rates a 5.5/10 from...

the Fiend :.

I just finished watching this movie. If you like sci-fi, you might enjoy this if you have nothing else to watch. The story line is OK, it could happen I suppose. The plot has been done so many times though. The acting is not there, even though it has some decent actors in it. Seems Cuba didn't even want to play the role, shows really no passion in the movie. The action failed real bad. After around 15 minutes or so, it turns video-gamish. The ending is left for a sequel in-which I have no clue as to why. Also, why did I give it a 5? It has it's moments & could have been a decent movie. If your a die-hard sci-fi fan, you might just like it. I try to be fair when judging all movies, because what I don't like others will & vice-versa.

Hardwired is like a (bad) Max Headroom fanfic RoboCop ripoff - including trying to make it look like it was made back then, except the production values don't look as good. It might have worked as a parody sketch if they'd kept it under 10 minutes. The special effects are particularly unbelievable. Throughout I kept feeling it was more like a Made-For-TV Movie, and with the ending more appropriate to a TV Pilot, it makes me wonder. It's not even so-bad-it's-funny, merely pathetic, so avoid this even for Schlock B-Movie nights.

I'm fairly generous with my Ratings, so 3 might be high.