Virtual Combat

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.)

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.

GRID RUNNERS is a straight to video action flick, directed by one-time star Andrew Stevens and starring Don "The Dragon" Wilson in what is a typically wooden role for the actor. Still, there's a whole slew of hard-hitting fight scenes in the movie, which is what it's all about.

The set-up is some quasi-sci fi background in which Wilson plays a cop tracking down a killer who's escaped from a virtual reality game. To add to the sleaze quotient (although it's more silly than sleazy) there are a couple of women from a cybersex game, which allows for the producers to incorporate a little sex and nudity into the narrative.

Your enjoyment of this movie will depend on how much you like seeing buff guys slugging it out for what occasionally seems like hours on end. Bad guy Michael Bernardo looks more like a cover model for a cheap romance novel than a real actor, but there are bit parts for genre staples like Stella Stevens, Turhen Bey, and Loren Avedon.

A shameless cash-in on the major studio movie VIRTUOSITY (1995), this is a rare example of a copy being better than the original. In the near-future (yes, again) Don 'The Dragon' Wilson plays a cop who - while investigating his partner's murder - stumbles upon a conspiracy to bring the impossibly-perfect women from a virtual reality sex program into the real world by re-writing synthetic DNA so it matches the coding of the girls' design, and then selling them as sex slaves to the highest bidder. An additional big problem is that an AI named 'Dante' who is the lethal & unbeatable final level boss opponent of a virtual reality combat game, has hijacked the technology to also create a body for himself, and intends to do the same for dozens of his dangerous VR brethren. I'm not usually a fan of martial art movies, and VIRTUAL COMBAT is set in an America where firearms have been banned, and so cops and criminals - even low level street punks - all rely on high-kicking chop-socky instead. But while all the fight scenes (and there are a lot) do get a bit tiring, this movie held my interest. Dante makes for a fine supervillain, and particularly welcome is the ridiculously gorgeous Athena Massey as the main VR sex siren.

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.