Virtuosity


0.5/4

Starring: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Kelly Lynch, William Forsythe

Rated R for Strong Futuristic Violence, Some Brutal Beatings, and Some Language

When a movie doesn’t take place in our reality, such as a sci-fi film like this one, it must establish a set of rules about what can and cannot happen, and then follow them for the rest of the movie.  That doesn’t happen here.  The result is evidence of a desperate screenwriter who keeps writing himself into corners and uses a series of deus ex machinas to get him out of them.  Normally this would be merely irritating, except for the fact that the movie is so dull that I lost interest ten minutes into the proceedings.

Parker Barnes (Washington in what has to be his laziest performance ever) is an ex-cop who is in prison for killing his family’s murderer and his cronies.  In order to get his sentence reduced, he volunteers as a guinea pig for a new virtual reality program that will be used to train cops to fight serial killers.  The program, Sid 6.7 (Crowe), is a combination of over 200 serial killers but is released by the head programmer (Stephen Spinella) because the program is about to be shut down.  Now Sid 6.7 is on the loose, killing people left and right just because he feels like it.  For reasons unexplained, the higher-ups think that Parker is the only one who can stop him.  He’s also, for reasons that too go unexplained, accompanied by Madison Carter (Lynch), a journalist writing a story on the program.  The catch is that because Sid 6.7 is made of synthetic material, he’s virtually invincible (as long as he has glass around to heal himself).

Denzel Washington is an actor capable of giving brilliant performances (see “Glory” and “The Hurricane” for examples).  But here, Washington is flat.  He looks like he’d rather be elsewhere, although like the best actors, he’s compelling even when he’s just going through the motions.  Russell Crowe tries to make it appear like he’s having a lot of fun as the off-the-wall serial killer, but he’s not given any good material.  Kelly Lynch is terrible and often irritating; fortunately, she’s on-screen as little as possible.

Director Brett Leonard bears most of the blame.  He directed “The Lawnmower Man,” which was at best a guilty pleasure.  Here, he has created an utter disaster.  His direction is pedestrian; the movie’s appearance makes direct-to-dvd movies look good.  While it’s true that he’s working with a script that’s a piece of crap, he makes even the most obvious plot points seem horribly contrived, and he exacerbates stupidity of the film’s less intelligent scenes.  For example, there’s one scene where Barnes is accused of shooting a civilian, when it was really Sid 6.7.  The cops know he didn’t do it, but they feel that it’s more important to obey the witnesses who mistakenly believe that Barnes did the deed.  Really?  Or even worse, the cops think thereafter that it’s more important to take down Barnes, who (they believe) only killed one person, than it is to take down Sid 6.7 who is invincible and is killing people left and right.

The main problem with the film is that it’s not fun.  It’s stupid, boring and an utter waste of time.

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