Virtuosity (1995)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Pretty Good

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington) is a former cop imprisoned for killing terrorist Matthew Grimes after he killed his wife and child. He and John Donovan are test subjects tracking down serial killer program SID 6.7 (Russell Crowe) in virtual reality training in the Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre. SID overloads the system and kills Donovan. Police Commissioner Elizabeth Deane (Louise Fletcher) orders the program shut down. Instead programmer Lindenmeyer tricks Clyde Reilly to download SID into a nano-machine body. With SID being free in the real world, the Commissioner offers Barnes a full pardon to bring SID back to virtual reality with the help of criminal psychologist Dr. Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch).I really love the ideas in this movie. I love the serial killer program, the virtual reality and the nanotech body. Russell Crowe is bringing a lot murderous glee into the character. I don't like the style of the computer program look. The whole movie could use a bit less of the stylized colored look. It was campy even back then. The movie is deliberately trying to be that 90s computer blocky look. I do really love the serial killer from Crowe and Washington as the dark hero. There's also an unrecognizable girl Kaley Cuoco as Carter's daughter. The brutality is relentless which doesn't wear out mostly because of the two great leads. It would have worked better with a darker look which would fit the subject better.

If you ever want to see a capable actor horribly overact watch this film. The actor I'm referring to is not Denzel but Russel Crowe. He plays an Evil AI program brought to life as a silicon-based human. Boy oh boy is this movie silly, everything is meant to look hi-tech but it all looks old and decrepit (CRT monitors, bulky computers, over-sized VR-Headsets, laughable 3D OS interfaces, plastic holographic cubes,...). Denzel does his best to look and act serious in what he must have come to realize is an awful mess. The plot is a typical 'cyberthriller', something the 90s had plenty off (Johnny Mnemonic, the Net, hackers, Lawnmower Man,...) but this here movie must be the worst off the bunch (I think, because some of the other were pretty ridiculous too). Strangely enough I wasn't bored, it's like disaster tourism, it all quite horrible but you can't look away :)

I bought this film awhile back for 50 cents on Amazon, just because William Fichtner was in it. I think he is a talented actor, who ranked up there among the best like Washington, Ford, Connery, etc.. Yes i am a huge Fichnter fan and he and Washington made it tolerable to watch this weird and unrealistic film. I am not a Russell Crowe fan at all, like his character SID 6.7, Crowe is so full of himself it's pathetic. First off the film is bazaar, it has to take place 15 years or more into the future. Think about it what police department would spend that kind of money on a virtual reality program to train their police officers. It a fact a computer can only train officer so much, while most of the training is done with real instructors; and real police academy students. I watched this movie again last night and didn't know whether to classify it as a comedy or Sci-Fi. I think the reason why I gave it a 6 star rating is because it does have some humor to it. As for paying money to see it at the theater, I'm glad I didn't. I then found out it was form the same director as the one who made Lawnmower Man, and that movie was more of a mistake than Virtuosity. THX, Kris L. CocKayne

Virtuosity was a big budget 90s film, that despite having a great cast, was a big flop. After I watched the film, it's fairly easy to see why. The premise of the film is that a police training, virtual reality serial killer, programmed with over 200 personalities, gets put into a robotic body and reeks havoc on LA. Having no one else to turn to, they turn to a famous cop, in prison, to catch him. The deal, catch Sid 6.7, get your freedom. It's a pretty cool idea, but after you get all the information in the beginning of the film, it turns into one big chase. That's it, a back and forth hunt, with no real substance, dialog, or anything more than explosions and gun shots. The cast was excellent and if they had focuses more on the technology and the scientific aspects of it, the film would have been awesome, but instead it's just another plain, boring, shoot out.