Dark Asset

Byron Mann has been growing on me since seeing him as the protégé in Steven Seagull films. Dark Asset is the perfect venue for him as he is in his element here, where he doesn't even take himself too seriously and does his mayhem with a casual aplomb. Add in provocatively supersensual femme fatales hotter than the sun and you've got the ideal popcorn fantasy action romp. The storytelling narration format with flashback presentations is well done and adds to both the intrigue and the fun of it all. Robert Patrick is typecast perfectly in the role he plays in all his efforts since his Terminator days. Not a blockbuster by any means yet still a strong candidate for the top favorites list. Enjoy and repent.

The movie starts out with a fair amount of low budget action. The special effects are from Party City. Numerous security types machine gun a door and it has the same ten holes in it no matter how many shots are fired.

Byron Mann (Ryu in the Street Fighter movie of 1994) is the lead actor. He plays a guy who is picked by Robert Patrick (the evil scientist) to be implanted with a new super-chip that makes him super smart, fast, etc. It is also supposed to give Robert Patrick control over him.

When Patrick gives Mann a test run in front of a CIA op and some investors, Mann breaks out. In the process he shoots about 25 mall security types and never needs to reload his handgun. He also downloads all of Patrick's master files, and even re-writes the code for himself in about two minutes.

The rest of the movie is totally boring. Mann meets up with another chipped agent, and spends about an hour telling her his story, and the same clips of the same lab escape are played about five times.

Mann programming code is also replayed a few times. Watching a guy typing code was boring enough the first time. He also throws in memory clips of him talking to other chipped agents and getting them to kill targets. It is a lot more boring than reading this.

Eventually at the end of the movie, we get a fight scene that is pretty entertaining. We also get revenge from the tomb (or the brain dead), which was a nice touch.

Dark Assets takes about 15 minutes of action, and replays into a 90 minute movie with a lot of explaining of the same clips over and over again.

Dr. Cain (Robert Patrick) has been implanting experimental microchips into people's brains. They increase brain power and function and also allows him to manipulate and control his subjects. John (Byron Mann) is his next subject. He can't control John who turns on him. John tracks down Jane (Helena Mattsson) and starts recounting the history of the program with her.

The start is fine especially for a B-movie. It has a fine premise and a familiar face. It's going well... for a B-movie. And then John sits down with Jane and starts talking. As he talks, it leads to flashbacks. That story structure goes on for half of the movie. Essentially, it saps the energy out of the action and the story. I get the idea of that turn at the end of it. It needs to come sooner. In addition, there are some non-sense in the story which I'm not going to nitpick. It's a B-movie after all. The middle really drags with the sit down flashback construction.

Writers Michael Winnick and Terri Farley-Teruel didn't exactly put together a script and storyline that had a whole lot going on for it. It was pretty straightforward, but also way too simplistic. There just simply wasn't enough of neither entertainment value nor much of any cerebral contents. And that made sitting through "Dark Asset" somewhat bland. In fact, you can just zone out, lean back and munch on the popcorn while the bland story progresses on the screen.

There were two familiar faces on the cast list, that being Byron Mann and Robert Patrick. The acting performances in "Dark Asset" were okay, but the actors and actresses weren't given all that much contents to work with in terms of script and character gallery.

What keeps the movie afloat is the action and fight sequences. Though I love how several fully automatic weapons on burst firing modes were unable to shoot through that thin wooden restaurant table that John was hiding behind in the restaurant scene, but hey, at least it provided me with a good laugh.

While I did managed to sit through all 90 minutes that the movie ran for, I have to say that I bet I will blissfully have forgotten about the movie come tomorrow.

"Dark Asset" is a movie that came and went without leaving a lasting impression. And it most definitely isn't a movie that I will be returning to a second time. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend you to rush out and get to watch.

Not the greatest of movies, sure, but watchable enough for the mindless entertainment it was. My rating of director Michael Winnick's 2023 action thriller "Dark Asset" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.

I'll go ahead and blame the budget on this one.. and also some uneven direction. Ultimately, this movie has the ingredients to be something fun and interesting, but it would rely on better choreography and filming style, a more engaging script, a serious round of editing, and set pieces that are a grade above the cafeteria across from the movie set. The acting is pretty decent (at least for the mains) when they are bantering through kill machine discovery.

Unfortunately, it feels like a 3-hour movie, but it is watchable for some mild entertainment in parts if nothing better presents itself. Lower your expectations though.