Virtuosity
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Parker Barnes - Denzel Washington
Madison Carter - Kelly Lynch
Sid 6.7 - Russell Crowe
Lindenmeyer - Stephen Spinella
William Cochran - William Forsythe
Elizabeth Deane - Louise Fletcher
Wallace - William Fichtner
John Donovan - Costas Mandylor
Clyde Reilly - Kevin J. O'Connor
Virtual Reality remains an alluring concept to filmmakers, but one that's enduringly problematic in being decidedly unreal. That drawback, in fact, is deftly underlined in pic's opening, where Parker Barnes (Washington) and a partner pursue a miscreant through a cityscape that's obviously computer-created. When the sequence ends, we learn that Barnes, an ex-cop now doing prison time for an act of revenge, is taking part in a VR simulation designed to train police officers for violent situations.
He returns to the slammer only to be thrust into a fight with a white-supremacist convict, a battle so arbitrary and unmotivated that it merely signals scripter Eric Bernt's recurrent tendency to sacrifice dramatic sense to jolts of action.
Barnes' real nemesis, it turns out, is the VR fabrication he chased in the first scene. Sid 6.7 (Russell Crowe) has been designed by computer whiz Lindenmeyer (Stephen Spinella) to combine the least savory character traits of Hitler, Manson and 181 other psychopath poster boys, including the serial killer who offed Barnes' family and provoked the vengeance that landed him behind bars.
Predictably enough, Sid 6.7 escapes into the real world, in a cyber-body that makes him virtually immune to conventional modes of extermination, and Barnes is chosen to hunt him down with the assistance of police psychologist Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch).
What follows is a tautly mounted but relentlessly conventional chase through L.A. locales that include a futuristic nightclub (the year is 1999), a wrestling arena and a shopping mall. While the body count mounts steadily, the suspense level doesn't really keep pace, largely because of the lack of human competition: The villain can take a volley of bullets, bleed a little blue blood and bounceback unharmed.
Like too many other such movies, pic climaxes with a battle atop a tall building, but here the hand-to-hand action mysteriously shifts from reality back to VR, one of several opaque plot twists that reflect the script's general patchiness.
Character development, mean-while, barely makes an appearance. While Washington emerges as an able action hero, the emphasis is so much on fight-and-run that we might as well be (and in many places, undoubtedly are) watching his stunt double. Lynch is similarly underemployed dramatically, and Aussie star Crowe, though adept in the degree of malevolent charm he's able to give Sid 6.7, proves the essential thanklessness of nonhuman roles.
Helmer Brett Leonard's handling is competent but undistinctive. Other tech credits are solidly pro.
Camera (Deluxe color), Gale Tattersall; editors, B. J. Sears, Rob Kobrin; music, Christopher Young; production design, Nilo Rodis; art direction, Richard Yanez-Toyon; set decoration, Jay Hart; costume design, Francine Jamison-Tanchuck; sound (Dolby), Thomas D. Causey; visual effects supervisor, Jon Townely; special visual effects , L<2> Communications; associate producer, Robert McMinn; assistant director, Steve Danton; casting, Deborah Aquila, Jane Shannon, Reviewed at Sony Astor Plaza, New York, July 31, 1995. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 105 MIN.
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