Terminal Error

As Terminal Error unraveled, I couldn't help compare it to 2001: A Space Odyssey (IMDb score 8.3), Colossus: The Forbin Project (IMDb score 7.1), and many others that successfully broach the subject of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Also couldn't help but marvel at how badly Terminal mangled the concept despite having three decades during which the most rudimentary knowledge of internet and computers became common.

For example, given that the highest voltage in computer gear (aside from 120Vac going into the power supply) is usually 12Vdc, exploding rack panels and monitors are ridiculous. There would be no source of the voltage needed to produce the fireworks. The keyboard layouts look like something the props department cooked up, when they could have easily gone to a computer store for real computer keyboards and bought a scrap of believability. By 2000, the idea of one large computer controlling every item in a home or business (let alone, most of a city) had gone out the window. If a door lock needed to be intelligent, it probably had its own microprocessor. Cruise missiles launching vertically from silos on US soil is rubbish. Add cheesy special effects, and a variety of voices the virus employs. There's ample other evidence that those responsible for this movie had been living under a rock, technologically speaking.

We also get an OD of the bratty son who makes us understand why some species eat their young. Michael Nouri's character is totally one-dimensional, while Marina Sirtis just seems she never shed the aura of Counselor Troy from Star Trek TNG.

We ultimately must conclude that, for Terminal Error, "AI" has to mean "Artificial Idiocy." Something this bad doesn't happen naturally.

We're supposed to believe a computer goofball gives a 'virus' to a kid in a song which gets on the kid's dad's computer and infects multiple city facilities...killing people and blowing up phone booths. Yeah, and the virus is a 'smart virus' which makes judgement calls. No thrills, no monsters to watch (unless you count Timothy Busfield (goofball); or Michael Nouri looking very old, and not even remotely giving a performance. Marina Sirtis is very ill-used here. I hope she smacked the screen writer and the director after she saw this drivel.

I should have read the reviews first. But then I would not have witnessed how bad acting and directing can be.

For the director, just looking at his abysmal ratings over his career tells it all. Why would any producing company invest in such movies? Money, even if profits are low?

The acting: the performance of Dylan, played by Matthew Ewald is exceedingly irritant from start to finish. When I read that he received numerous nominations and awards, I discovered that two of his best decorated performances (coffins ...) had no rating and no reviews.

In conclusion, the movies industry follows the same Gaussian pattern as the one for IQ.

The art of tension is creating high stakes, and then dancing on the edge of disaster until the climax.

When the audience is cringing at the plethora of ridiculous scenarios spewed onto the screen in front of them, tension is not achieved.

The basic premiss is not too bad. We've seen these virus films before, and the potential is there for a couple of programmer spods to do effective battle with a virus. But you have to truly research the subject, and you might realize computers can't fire guns, sign cheques, take showers... any of which would have not seemed out of place in this dross.

There is little grace in the action. They pull over to have domestic conversations. Insert irregular and obtrusive dialogue. We might as well put a colour coded bar on to denote main and subplots.

All that said, if you are the kind of person who doesn't know how to wind up your sundial, then you'll probably love this film.

Marina Sirtis should fire her agent for getting her in this. Her talent is thoroughly wasted here.

Machines-gone-berserk story that builds upon a goofy premise. This time, a computer virus is downloaded into a sensitive program, in a manner beyond the sublimely ridiculous. The perpetrator of this nasty scheme is a psychotic guy who giggles like a baboon and sweats from his forehead a lot. He's an irate employee who got fired, and his unwitting accomplice is the teen-angst-ridden crybaby son of the guy that did the firing.

Once downloaded, the virus blows up things in Russia, takes over appliances, shoots rockets at cars, plays with traffic signals, talks too much, and does a pitiful impression of Hal 9000 from "2001."

The kid, the dad, the psycho, and Hal 9000 Jr., all get on your nerves pretty early on. There is one character, apparently based on Stephen Hawking, who had the potential to be interesting, but the film does not give him much screen time, nor does it develop the character enough. Marina (as teen-angst's mother) really tries, but she is given very little to do, other than scream or run in terror.

If you turn your brain off for 90 minutes, and just want a good laugh, the film is OK for that. However, if you're looking for a plausible story, this one is just a terminal error.