Utter Dreck.

Throughout my lifetime I have been developing a refined system of identifying my boredom. Watching this movie allowed me to bring it to a refined, calibrated science replete with a tool: I call it the Boredomometer. In the construction of my own mind, it looks something like a totem pole or one of those ‘ring-the-bell-with-a-sledgehammer” thingamajigs at the fair. My Boredomometer has 5 levels; I call them Level 1 – Level 5, nothing fancy here, after all it’s about boredom. Level 1 is attained when I express, “uhhhh”; at Level 2 I’m going, “Oh my”; Level 3 registers at, “Oh my God”; Level 4 at, “Oh my dear Lord God Jeez what the hell”; and Level 5 any similar variation of this, “Oh my *beep* God Lord Almighty Jesus *beep* *beep* Christ buckets, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” I achieved Level 5 about 15 minutes into this movie.



As I was noticing the abundance of cobwebs throughout my room: under the dresser, in every corner, and in the furthermost recess of my headboard; I pulled myself back into the movie. This was the first of many times to come. The movie is about Virtual Reality gone bad. Denzel Washington (who I will refer to from now on as DW, I’ve forgotten the character’s name) is a cop, or make that ex-cop, no, make that cop, no, ex-cop. At the beginning of the movie, he’s chasing a bad guy through the city. DW has some kind of special instinct and even when the bad guy loses him he knows exactly which building he went in. Reason why? Because he’s sharp as a tack and he don’t look back! Lame Alert!! The building is a Japanese restaurant and the bad guy has taken the time to dawn himself in a kimono, sit down in a private paper-wall booth and order a complete meal, in the time of say 25 seconds. Sharp and instinctive as he is, DW enters and studies the incredibly detailed and well-lit silhouetted shadow of the bad guy cast upon the paper-wall and fires away, and misses from 5 feet. DW’s partner is killed and then reality kicks in: it was all an episode inside of a virtual reality “machine.” Cops chase bad guys there for training to be used in the real world, but DW is not a cop, he’s an ex-cop who is now a con, soon to be an ex-con, but he plays a cop in this virtual training program. The Virtual Reality company uses cons as the first test subjects for this training “machine.”



DW goes back to prison, without his cellmate, and goes thru some kind of super-duper detection device. This movie is set in the future, in 1999, and operates under the assumption that by then we would have already developed true AI, developed AI-nanotechnology, and have completely robotic prosthetics. Well, DW has a robotic left arm; I have yet to figure out why that is included in the story. As he goes through the super-duper detection device an alert is activated, “Metallic Limb Detected.” No *beep* Sherlock! After all his time in prison have they just figured this out? He enters the prison and does the quintessential prison movie walkthrough: the one where prisoner walks alone between rows of first-floor and second-floor cells while fellow cons chant sweet nothings and throw things like strips of paper. I couldn’t figure that one out: Why are they throwing strips of paper and confetti at DW? If I was an angry prisoner and wanted to disturb a fellow inmate’s Hollywood walkthrough, I would unhinge my toilet seat and let fly through the bars, or throw a bar of soap, or better yet a handful of something nasty. But strips of paper? It looked like a ticker tape parade for the return of Andy Hardy after solving “The Mystery of the Three-legged Dog“ down in Wilpeakes County.



This scene is not over just yet. At the end of the walkthrough awaits a scary, hairy white dude who is mad that DW let his own cellmate die, “Why’d you let Gary 5-times die, you pig *beep*?” How does he know the cellmate is dead already? Why does he care if the cellmate is dead? And why do the prison guards allow this to happen? I guess because DW is an ex-cop. But he’s not an ex-cop who went bad; he killed a serial killer who killed his family and went to jail for it. Why did he go to jail for it? Why would other cops and prison guards hate him? Because it serves a stupid plot-driving device that sets up DW as the underdog who has to fight the system, fight the bad guys, fight the good guys, and he lost his family. You have to root for him, don’t ya? Not really, this DW character is lamer than Andy Hardy’s 3-legged dog. He’s programmed in this movie with certain parameters much like a robot would be: be mad at world, be sad, be untrusting, be suave, GO TO >police headquarters. There’s no human conviction here, no empathetic ties for us to make. The movie is coincidentally concerned with robots and all of this director’s other movies are about robots or computer-programmed human brains, actually (e.g. “Lawnmower Man” and most recently a movie about Siegfried and Roy). Anyway, DW fights the white dude on a set which looks like Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” video, without the bar and stools, and kills him, I think, and it brings absolutely nothing to the story. But, I did find some more cobwebs at the base of my desk chair.



Back at the lab which looks a lot like a rented warehouse and has lots of empty cardboard boxes lying around, evil genius Something-or-other (I forgot this character’s name too) who has programmed the “machine”, has a conversation with SID 6.7, the computer programmed virtual-reality bad guy in the training “machine”. You might be asking why I keep putting “machine” in quotation marks: it’s because I find it really dumb; you oughtta see this thing, uhhhhhh. SID is a program of 200 different serial killers combined into one mega-evil criminal. Seems like that would be confusing for a serial killer manifestation, “Do I wanna strangle, mutilate, and then bury my victim? Or shoot them in the back with a crossbow, tattoo their forehead with my grandmother’s initials and deliver them to the local pet food store? Or, maybe tape them tarred, feathered and emasculated onto the local TV news broadcasting dish and bake them in the sun?” The only thing this bad guy ever does is shoot people or choke them; this personality of 200 criminals thing is the kind of gobbledygook they think will perk some ears up when people hear it. The only thing perking up for me is a bunch of cobwebs. SID wants to live, wants to escape deprogramming since he has now killed a human (the cellmate guy). The evil genius dumps SID’s program chip into a vat full of Jolly Rancher, Now or Later blue, inchoate, silicon jelly-shaped, programmed puddy goo of nanotech wizardry. SID begins his transmutation into the naked form of Russell Crowe while literally “hatching” forth from the nanotech vat all to the tune of some bubblegum-ass Billy Ocean song which made me think of Max Headroom Pepsi commercials and a horribly mutated Cookie Monster. It looked like a Saturday Night Live skit about the movie “The Demon Seed” where a naked John Belushi would have popped out and done a running belly flop onto a 3-foot tall stack of giant-sized pancakes.



Now SID is on the loose, the evil genius flees, and the main cop, played by William Forsythe, is convinced only DW can locate and destroy SID. His logic follows thusly: DW is an ex-cop, one of the serial killers programmed into SID killed DW’s family and is responsible for the loss of his real arm, and DW has experience tracking SID in the training “machine”. Even though they have an entire police force, even though DW has failed in every training mission to detain SID, even though he allowed his partner to be killed inside the virtual reality training program last time with an electric sushi knife, even though he’s in prison, and even though he’s just now killed a fellow inmate he is released from prison, given a badge, and is reinstated as a cop: all in a time span of about 12 seconds. This William Forsythe character is getting on my nerves. I’ve seen no less than four movies with this guy playing the exact dumbass cop role with a khaki trench coat, cheap blue suit, and thick burly moustache who acts tough but never does anything tough (“Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,” “Blue Streak,” G-Men from Hell”) he’s a walking gasbag, make that douchebag, no wait, make that gouchebag! His moment of glory is later on in the movie when he throws a plastic chair into and onto a computer control center which controls the most sophisticated and technological human tracking device ever conceived but upon receiving the brunt of the plastic chair assault explodes. It doesn’t just stop working, it explodes. See, DW has a chip inside his brain which they can program from this machine to go off and poison him. William Forsythe, pretty much the only cop ever seen in this movie besides a later shootout scene where there are literally about 3000 sniper-type cops all wearing black spandex pants (is this the future?), finds out about it and attacks the machine to save his old buddy. This is one of those scenes where the camera shot persistently shows a lame computer graphic that is “loading up” increasing from 20%, 30%, 80%, then switches from multiples of ten to 91%, 93%, 98% and upon 100% will detonate DW’s death chip. But that’s when Forsythe busts in just in time and unleashes the power of Golgotha.



So now the chase is on and SID is running around shooting and looting and loves to get attention, especially to be on TV. He likes to be chased and he likes the fact that DW is chasing him and so he assumes the character of the serial killer who killed DW’s family. If he’s so smart why is he so dumb? He does things like dance to the Bee Gees in busy shopping malls and gives people hi-fives. Now, I would do this, but I’m not a $20 Million computer program with the mind of 200 serial killers, or am I? Why is this in the movie? This movie really picked its own audience by having such blatantly soft-core characters. In anything remotely similar to a real world, especially a world where people are hunting serial killers, we don’t get a real sense of fear or suspense in seeing a serial killer who walks around town to the tune of a Tricky song. This is lame and makes this movie play out like a video game advertising trailer; full of lights, senseless action, senseless plot, and mind numbing idiocy. DW has some help from a criminal psychologist (Kelly Lynch, “Drugstore Cowboy” chick) whose main reason to be in the film is to be female and to yell occasionally when DW gets into trouble. She offers absolutely nothing in the way of sleuthing, insight, or even a brief nudity shot. There is no substantial reason for this character to exist, except for maybe one thing later on.



SID kills people and they chase him. SID seems to be learning about life in the real world. They constantly denote this by saying to each other, “SID’s evolving” thereafter they look at each other with growing horror in their eyes. I was thinking to myself, “No *beep* he’s evolving, did you not notice that when he turned into a true physical being, shut up with your, ‘Sid’s evolving’ you numbskulls?” Things happen like car chases and SID speaks into the car CB and it is directly linked to DW’s CB. Why is there a CB in the car SID just stole? Do you have a CB in your car? Do people install CBs in their cars which operate on the same frequency as police radios? SID dumps the car, goes around the corner and loses them. He then enters an ‘Ultimate Fighting Championship’ in an arena somewhere. The crowd is chanting for the current champion, “Ka pow” foot stomp, foot stomp, “Ka pow” and so on. SID attacks a girl, kills her boyfriend, “Ka pow” stomp stomp “Ka pow”. SID is then approached by a security guard carrying a shotgun who then shoots his entire arm off, “Ka pow” stomp stomp “Ka pow.” SID does a back flip from the top tier of the arena and falls on his back in front of the entire crowd, “Ka pow” stomp stomp “Ka pow.” SID runs into the arena and knocks the guy out with a blow to the shins (heh?), “Ka pow” stomp stomp “Ka pow.” Why are these people still chanting after a murder, shot gun blast and a death-defying human swan dive have happened right before their very eyes? Are these kinds of fans that stupid? Maybe so. DW enters the scene and SID runs off to the train station where he takes a woman hostage, shoots her in the back and all the crowd believe DW shot the woman. Even though she is being held by an armless man bleeding blue gunk who is yelling at the top of his lungs and holding a gun to her. DW loses his badge and is again an ex-cop and is now on the run. SID can regenerate tissue however by eating glass, this feeds the nanobytes and allows for silicone enhancements and he regrows his arm. Isn’t that convenient? Just think about the breast implants he could give himself.



At long last we come to the conclusion. DW has an epiphany that SID will take over the local TV station because of the big airing that night, because SID likes attention and therefore this is what he will do, because everything’s a video game to SID, and this movie’s like a video game. He and female go there after making a quick visit to the woman’s daughter at her home. SID has followed them and kidnaps the daughter (I guess this is why the woman’s in the movie, but why not just kidnap any kid? Leave this role out of it and save the money you’d have to pay the actress). NOTE TO SELF: If I am ever being chased by a maniacal serial-killing android with the mental pathology of 200 serial killers, do not let only daughter play alone outside and unsupervised. DW and female arrive on the scene to discover that SID has already taken over and taken hostages. He kills a guy on live TV and after doing so a little computer graphic pops up showing us that the TV ratings just skyrocketed 5 seconds after the slaying. How does this happen? Do people have a psychic connection to the TV airwaves and know that something just happened on TV but they missed it, so they better rush to their TV sets immediately and start tuning in? Police sniper-goons dressed like Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing the Ninja Swan show up and shoot about 450,000,000 bullets but never hit DW and never even think to pursue SID who is killing people on live TV. DW is able to dodge machine gun fire and make his way to the top floor of the station’s building and chase SID some more. They make their way out to the top of the building and dart around on dangerous scaffolding and there’s lots of steam and large slowly turning fan blades. SID is thrown through a window and somehow manages to have glass bits, shards, and entire panes sticking out of every pore of his body. DW rips SID’s chip out from his head and SID dies. But they haven’t found female’s daughter. I will now give you a real-time description of the final events; each sentence constituting about 20 seconds of movie time. They plug SID into a computer and fool him into thinking he’s still alive and he gives away the girl’s location. DW goes to her, finds a bomb and diffuses it by ripping wire out of his arm (maybe that’s the reason for his robotic arm) and shoving it into the bomb. DW throws SID’s chip to the ground and it breaks. The End!

What this movie lacks in character it makes up for in stupidity. You ever watched one of those newer episodes of “The Outer Limits” where everything looks cheap and the characters talk in stifled, pedantic tones about how all the plants have turned purple. Throughout the movie, character development takes a backseat to action: five scenes go by with chases and other action candy but we know nothing about these people. Why should I care about them? The special effects remind me of the movie “Tron”, an 80’s classic and infinitely better film. But, Tron was an allegory to video games and wasn’t trying to come off as a “cutting edge techno-thriller” and it was made 13 years prior to Virtuosity. Virtuosity is a retread of a retread of a retread when it comes to Hollywood cliché. Metaphorically speaking, I felt like I was at a movie soup kitchen eating the leftovers from all the cop-action flicks shown on Cinemax back in the 80’s. This is the kind of film that you watch and you feel like Hollywood owes you money for your patronage and patience, that they owe you dividends for all the money you’ve put in. Throughout this movie I constantly had something running on silent mode in the back of my head; a Dusty Springfield verse with a couple of changes. I don’t know why, it just happens, but I think it’s a pretty good catch-all for this movie:



Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the cobwebs of your mind



I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.