Virtuosity

Remember when virtual reality was gonna be the wave of the future?  I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen ‘cause I’m not wearing an oversized 50 pound headset right now.  Ok I’ll admit that I did “VR” once way back in the 90’s and I don’t remember it being that much fun.  But for all I know cops really did use virtual reality to train their recruits…or prisoners.  And maybe they still do.

This one is definitely off most people’s radars and I can understand why if you just read the plot summery and see who’s in it but I’m going to try and persuade you guys otherwise.  We have Denzel Washington (Training Day and most of Tony Scott’s recent repertoire) as Parker Barnes and he’s an ex-cop in prison for merc-ing vigilante style the terrorist dude that kidnapped his wife and child.  Well, and he also killed an innocent news crew that was interviewing the guy.  In the process he lost one of his arms and got it replaced with a robotic one but it looks like a regular human arm so you forget that he has it.  For the most part the robot arm only comes up when it’s convenient for the film but I still like that they threw it in there.  Barnes is being used as a guinea pig by LETAC (Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre) to work out the bugs of a new cop training simulator.  The problem with this program is that it’s so realistic that if you die in VR then there’s a good chance that you’ll die in real life sorta like The Matrix.  By the way I love the frantic spiky explosive computer animation that alerts the operators that the brain is overloaded.  Anyway the guy that these prisoners face off against is the computer program personality SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe (L.A. Confidential, The Next Three Days)).  But through some bullshit sciencey type stuff SID is brought to the real world and now he’s running amok killing people ‘n shit.  The only man that can stop him is Barnes because he’s the only one that got close to killing him in VR.  Oh and Kelly Lynch (Roadhouse, White Man’s Burden) comes along for the ride for some reason.

This is Denzel’s second action picture (the first was Ricochet and it’s a pretty good one but John Lithgow is the reason why, he’s a meaner and more sadistic version of Qualen from Cliffhanger) but here he gets to do a lot of the fighting.  He’s kind of a middle of the road action star for me.  He’s not terrible but he’s not great either.  When he does hand to hand he looks like he has no idea what he’s doing and he’s just not that intimidating physically.  He’s a pretty man that can turn on the arrogance and be assholic in a heartbeat but he never really says anything cool.  In this movie there are two things about him that suit an action star though and the first is the confidence factor.  He knows that he can catch whatever scumbag he’s after and just needs to stay out of trouble long enough to get the job done.  I also like the flawed hero side of him.  His haunted past consists of his wife and child getting held hostage so he takes matters into his own hands.  I like that drive and tenacity that he puts into Barnes.  Denzel takes this seriously and of course that’s what I’m looking for.  Sure he cracks some jokes here and there but that’s to be expected in any action film.  When it comes time to take down SID he’s all business.

Russell Crowe on the other hand acts like more of a goofball.  I wish he would’ve played this more seriously like Denzel.  He’s the smug type of villain that’s interested in fashion and how pretty he looks.  The thing is that I know that Crowe can take things really seriously if he wants but he elected not to do so in this case.  He taunts Barnes and treats everyone like they’re inferior but does it with a tee-hee-hee laugh.  I mean if Crowe’s character is a computer program then why would he use humor?  How does a computer know what’s funny and what a pun is and what irony is ‘n shit?  Shouldn’t he be void of any wit?  That certainly doesn’t make any sense but if you’re willing to buy that part about a fucking computer program turning into a real life Russell Crowe then I guess this shouldn’t be that much of a stretch.  But SID does have some badass lines like he tells Barnes, “just because I’m carrying around the joy of killing your family inside me doesn’t mean we can’t be friends”.  So all in all, like Denzel, he’s not bad but not great.

Kelly Lynch plays Madison Carter, a criminal psychologist, and is allowed to partner up with Barnes because she can keep track of him.  Remember Barnes is a prisoner that they’re turning loose to find SID so they’re not sure if he’ll kill some innocent person.  But they also implant a tracker device in his head so they know where he is at all times.  Since they have this tracker it seems like letting Carter tag along isn’t really necessary.  In fact she doesn’t really do shit in this movie that helps Barnes out that much.  But she’s a sympathetic character that feels for him and the movie alludes that they’re in love with each other.  I think it’s interesting to note that Denzel is the only black guy in the entire cast.  I’m not sure if the filmmakers are saying something about interracial relationships or about race in America in general but the movie doesn’t feel like it has a message.  If it’s there then it wasn’t brought out enough.

But there are a couple of reasons why I like this movie a bunch and to begin with it feels big.  There are a whole host of things that give the illusion that this movie had a huge budget including the giant VR room, a car chase, several shootouts, Denzel Washington and a final fight on the roof of a skyscraper.  This movie goes all around L.A. too so the setting keeps changing.  They go to a techno club, an electronics store, a TV studio and an Ultimate Fighting Championship match.  Yeah, you read that last part right.  I guess UFC ponied up some money for this picture because there’s a whole scene devoted to it.  They give you a lot of bang for the budget they were dealing with.  This thing cost $30 million and for a summer movie that’s cheap.  Just to give a comparison, some other summer pictures released in 1995 and their budgets were Braveheart ($53 mil), Apollo 13 ($62 mil), Die Hard: With a Vengeance ($90 mil), Batman Forever ($100 mil) and Waterworld ($175 mil).     

Another reason why I like this movie is that there’s a prison fight scene.  The cinematography for that fight and way it was shot makes it a beautiful and standout part of the film.  Ironically there’s also a prison fight in Ricochet but John Lithgow is the one wearing phone books as armor and wielding a huge spear and not Denzel.

This movie is nice to look at too.  I already mentioned all the different setting locations but there’s also the sparkly bright blue blood that SID bleeds.  Sure it’s not as cool looking as red human blood but it’s a nice touch.  Also whenever SID gets shot up he can repair himself by using glass.  He just has to stick his blown off hand by some window and these veiny things will shoot out and form a brand new one.  Did I mention that there are a lot of bad 90’s computer effects all over this thing?

William Forsythe (Out for Justice, Stone Cold) is in this but unfortunately he doesn’t play a total maniac.  It’s remarkable that he can still be badass as shit even when he’s playing it down.  But Forsythe’s character is basically the same guy that he would play in The Rock a year later, mustache and all.  Also William Fichtner (Dark Knight, Heat) has a minor role here and it’s always nice when he pops up.  

Virtuosity does have its fair share of dumb things though like the techno music during the car chase and the recreation they did of the intro from Saturday Night Fever.  And there were some missed opportunities like SID is made up of all of these different killers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacey ‘n shit and they even have him do a Manson style killing at this one house (off screen unfortunately, in fact he kills a lot of people off screen).  But they should have kept going with that theme.  I would’ve loved to have seen SID rob a bank like Jesse James (the bank robber not the Monster Garage guy) or pretend to be a prostitute and then shoot some poor john like Aileen Wournos (both really are listed as being part of SID’s make up).  I also would’ve liked to have seen SID fight someone in a UFC match as long as we’re tossing around ideas.

But there’s one really weird thing that I noticed when I went back to skim the movie for this piece and that’s that the whole idea of bringing SID into the real world was SID’s.  I thought the weasely programmer guy that created him came up with it.  How SID knew about this technology while the other guy didn’t and how he formulated this plan I have no idea.  But isn’t that fucking strange?  The programmer dude wants revenge because his superiors want to shut the VR cop training program down so SID tells him what he should do?  What’s really funny is that this guy actually goes through with the plan.  He thinks SID’s idea is a good one and implements it.  I dunno man.

Brett Leonard directed this and I was very surprised to find out that I have actually seen most of his filmography without knowing it.  I’m still not sure how I feel about that.  I’ve even seen his IMAX short T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous and his crappy music video for the crappy Peter Gabriel song “Kiss That Frog”.  Looking back on what he’s done it’s not a very solid body of work but I do like that he’s into computer movies ‘cause I see that he did The Lawnmower Man.    

But I’m telling ya, from the absurd idea of growing a Russell Crowe computer program in a giant neon blue dinosaur egg while some R&B plays to the idea that virtual reality is so real that it’ll fry your brain if you die in the game makes this a movie definitely worth checking out.  If you’re into dated 90’s computer movies like The Net, Ghost in the Machine and The Lawnmower Man then this is right up your alley.

And did anyone else think that virtuosity was a made up word?  Well I looked it up and it means to play with great skill like a virtuoso.  I always thought they just blended the words “virtual” and “reality” together to make up a new one.