Bombshell

Bombshell pulls off the difficult trick of creating a believable sci-fi future; it's a trick that many higher budget movies have failed at, but director Paul Wynne knows that technology should simplify life not complicate it, so he opts against the usual blinking lights and dark sets , choosing instead a streamlined, colour-coded world. It oozes camp panache, both in the production design and in the performances from a strong cast of under-rated actors, who are photographed like models in a fashion spread.

Henry Thomas is admirably non-butch for a leading man (especially one who has just 24 hours to find out why his kidney has been replaced with a bomb). Frank Whalley does the nervous-nice-guy-with-hidden-depths routine he perfected in Swimming With Sharks, Madchen Amick fights like girls really do (pulling hair, kicking, shouting - no graceful pseudo-karate here) in defense of her mono-kidneyed man, and Pamela Gidley sparkles in a cameo as a predatory reporter with perfect lipgloss.

Bombshell glories in its influences; the sets are strong and sparse and would have made Kubrick smile, LA is eerily empty in a Planet Of The Apes-type way, the waitress is Marilyn in pink latex, and the corporate overlord with unscrupulous business practices is played by Bladerunner veteran, Brion James. The cars look like giant Hotwheels.

If you find the plot thin, silly even, then you're missing the point; Bombshell has a tongue wedged firmly in its cheek, and is all the better for it. Enjoy the ride...

Scientist, Buck Hogan (Henry Thomas) is working on a breakthrough in Nano-technology for treating / eradicating cancer. When he finds a catastrophic flaw in the project, he does the sensible thing and tells his boss (Brion James) who ignores him.

Hogan quickly finds himself facing a series of terrifying events, including unnecessary surgery, and the implantation into his body of his own personal doomsday device.

One problem with BOMBSHELL is its silly "futuristic" setting. From the fashions to the cars it's all hyper-colorful cheeeze. This is an unintentionally humorous distraction and a shame, since the basic story isn't bad and could have easily been set in contemporary times.

Another annoyance is the utterly non-threatening villain. He's pretty pathetic, especially when he gets all "vulnerable".

Ugh!

Co-stars Madchen Amick and Shawnee Smith...

Here's the scenario.( If at all interested in seeing this movie and forming your own opinions, read this after you've seen it. I'm going to tell you what happens.)

You're a nanomachine engineer named Buck(Thomas) and your girlfriend is a doctor named Anjeline(Amick). You're in love and well to do, so life is peachy, right? Unfortunately, someone knocks you out one night, steals your kidney and replaces it with a ball of acid. Then, you are given tasks to perform to keep the ball from eating your insides away. The boxes promised to hold the antidote are well wrapped but are also empty. Then, someone kidnaps Anjeline, and you wonder how it could get any worse.

Finally, (cough,cough, cough) you figure out that it would take great nanomachine knowledge to build a bomb inside you, so you decide to check up on your irate engineering partner with the horrid cough. Are you surprised to find the kidney kidnapper also has your girlfriend and that he has been completing the bomb inside you by lacing those empty packages with nanomachines?

So, you ineptly botch the rescue attempt and he pulls a gun on the both of you. Now, you have to give him a ride to the laboratory where he wants to blow up you and said laboratory.

But, never fear, in the last five minutes, the police show up and botch their own rescue attempt and kill your irate friend, and a snoopy blackmailing news woman in the cross fire.

It's OK now, right! No, you've still got the bomb in you, the watch your crazed coworker was holding says you've got 30 seconds until you're a wall pizza, and he was the only one who knew how to diffuse it, now what to do. Anjeline to the rescue. She grabs a scalpel, cuts you open, jerks out the bomb and helps you run out the laboratory before it explodes and you don't even bleed to death.

It was more unbelievable to watch than it was to read. The culprit can only be someone with great nanomachine experience, and that leaves out everyone but your disgruntled coworker who asked you before this whole thing started to delay the human testing, but your boss said to go ahead to please the investors. Then, your girlfriend learns while she is strung up like a side of beef by this guy that he has a serious grievance against GM and large companies who put money ahead of humanity. And you have the gall to act surprised!!

There wasn't much that worked in this movie. The chemistry between Thomas and Amick seemed strained at best. Amick walked around half naked the better part of the movie but couldn't even bring herself to do a few T&A shots. Apparently, she didn't feel like getting completely into the role, so you get a half a** acting job. Thomas fared no better, he isn't used to being the lead actor, he usually saves that for some synthetic rubber creation with fingers like sausage or for actresses named Barrymore. At times, he gets these looks like he doesn't know what he is doing, and it doesn't help that he gets these looks during the sex scenes with Amick.

The most unbelievable thing is how long it took Buck to figure out what was going on, and this guy is a nanomachine engineer. I thought that was up near brain surgeon I.Q. And then there were the quickie surgeries; kidnap, cut open, remove kidney, replace with bomb, sew back up, lay on hood of very cool car; overnight!?!@ This guy is good but Anjeline is even better; throw on table, grab scalpel, filet you like a fish and jerk out bomb without regard for the consequences; 30 seconds!! It has to be a world record.

At the end where you see the building blow up, you think they have died in the explosion which would have been the biggest surprise of the movie. It might have saved it. Then, you go back inside and see Anjeline and Buck get out in another shot. So, the director was trying.

And what were they trying to do, throw some suspicion on the news woman. It didn't work, she didn't have the credentials, no matter how well she played the part, and she was the best actor by far. And, perhaps the best part of the movie, Buck's car.

All I have to say to the writer, wouldn't it have been easier to kidnap the girl from the very beginning, it's not new but it is believable. 5 out of 10

Though one of the more stylish SciFi Channel Original films to be churned out in the mid 90's Bombshell is a technological paean to Virtuosity. Brightly colored vinyl clothing, trendy scifi plotline (nanotech), ambiguously futuristic LA location shots and an over ambient techno soundtrack grace this film, that on its surface is more glitz than actual story. But that is its advantage. Bombshell doesn't try to get into the overly heady world of nanotechnology and its lauded but theoretical uses but instead takes a nice cyberpunk premise and runs with it full tilt. It plays with the future so freely that its like watching a collision of J.G.Ballard, with fashions by Hot Topic and Post artschool film mixed with Popular Science until you have Henry Thomas racing down the canals of the LA river in his futurisitic speedster, a scientist desparate to remove a destructive part of himself and unable to do so until he obeys his unseen master to the finish. Its not rocket science or even quantum science but it is a surreal and inoffenseve little diversion that would be welcome in a tech-nightmare moviethon.

Okay, so it is not THE greatest of films, and granted I've only seen the movie on sci-fi channel, so I do not even know what the R-rated version is like. But I have seen this film twice and both times I really enjoyed for various reasons.

One is that I loved the cast. I thought everyone was well-picked for the parts they play. A lot of my personal favorite young actors and cult favorites are amongst them like Henry Thomas, Madchen Amick, Frank Whaley, Brion James, Shawnee Smith, and Victoria Jackson.

The film is also major sci-fi eye candy. The direction and the special f/x remind me a lot of the film STRANGE DAYS, which is another film that serves as sci-fi eye candy.

And it's also just one of those classic plots that was put together so well in a revised sci-fi version that others have tried to do, specifically PARANOIA 1.0, but have failed miserably.

I enjoyed BOMBSHELL, and if you liked STRANGE DAYS, you will probably like this film.

Thumbs up.