Virtuosity (1995) Review
December 27th 2010 21:31
Back in the 90's the world was to be blessed with a little thing called “Virtual Reality”. The idea that a computer could be programed to put you into a simulated world so realistic you couldn't distinguish it from the real thing. It's applications were to be endless, surgeons and police could be trained in dangerous tasks free from real life concurrences, technology could be tested and developed without the restraints of real-world physics, and of course it would make for some pretty sweet video games. Sadly, in the end all we got were the video games (I plunked a lot of quarters into “Dactyl Terror” back in the day) but from these lofty predictions we got the “Cyberpunk” of science fiction whicch gave us such movies as “Ghost in the Machine” “The Lawnmower Man” and of course, “The Matrix”.
Today I'm going to look at one of the lesser known classics of the genre, “Virtuosity” starring a young Denzel Washington in battle with a young Russel Crowe. As predicted in the optimistic vision of VR's creators, the police in “Virtuosity” use VR to train cops in tracking down killers, To challenge these police, the VR programmers whipped up a psychotic program named SID 6.7 who was visually “Raised” by 200 mass murderers, sadists and dictators. Unfortunately the psychotic program was made a bit too well, as it figured out how to kill people in reality, and eventually even escapes the computer world (in a nigh-invicible robotic body to boot) to wreak havoc on actual reality. Enter world-weary and street smart cop Parker Barns, who's recruited to take down the malignant killer robot.
This story sounds like it could come out of any issue of “Asimov Science Fiction” and on the surface it sounds very deep and cerebral, however it's not. Like many sci-fi films on the 90's “Virtuosity” uses cheesy sets and costumes, as well as vapid air-headed dialogue riddled with cop-movie cliche. While Russel Crowe is a brilliant actor, he didn't seem to know quite how to depict SID 6.7 who came off as a mix between Hannibal Lector and a Caesar Romero era Joker. Despite being able to kill on a whim the film
made him feel more goofy than scary. And not lovable goofy, more like “Shut the hell up, your not as clever as you think you are” Kind of goofy. Despite this, I enjoyed the film more for the mystery/science fiction mix, and the 90's cool special effect helped out. A somewhat funny cameo by adult star Traci Lords also helped pump up the “geek” factor but was too little too late.
“Virtuosity” was one of the sad rejects of the cyberpunk genre. It wasn't good enough to be a classic (Like the Matrix) or bad enough to be fun (Like “Ghost in the Machine”) It was really painfully average in every way. While it's been widely overshadowed by other classics of the period, it's really not bad so much as it was just released at the wrong time. Five years earlier it would have been amazing, five years later it would have been a syfy original movie. If your a fan of hard sci-fi then don't miss out, otherwise you'll be yawning.
This story sounds like it could come out of any issue of “Asimov Science Fiction” and on the surface it sounds very deep and cerebral, however it's not. Like many sci-fi films on the 90's “Virtuosity” uses cheesy sets and costumes, as well as vapid air-headed dialogue riddled with cop-movie cliche. While Russel Crowe is a brilliant actor, he didn't seem to know quite how to depict SID 6.7 who came off as a mix between Hannibal Lector and a Caesar Romero era Joker. Despite being able to kill on a whim the film
Who keep programing robots to kill? I mean seriously knock it off!
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