Menno’s Mind

Overview: Here we have a movie with Bruce Campbell, Michael Dorn, and the very hawt Stephanie Romonov – this movie’s got to have something appealing, right? Um, not really. Menno’s Mind, a Showtime production is nowhere close to ready for prime time. The only thing worse than the acting and effects is the completely incoherent story. The FX are crappy low budget ones, but truly, nothing else in the movie even comes close to equaling them.

The Story: Menno’s mind takes place in a bizarre, cheesy future where everyone dresses in tacky bright clothes, except for the tough chicks, who wear black leather. Menno (The Rocketeer’s Bill Campbell) is a sappy computer programmer at a very popular virtual reality resort that provides people a choice of interesting vacations (most choose the virtual sex chick on the beach). The “System” that runs the VR vacations is very powerful, and has the capability to implant thoughts and suggestions into the vacationers. The resort’s head of security, Felix Medina (Corbin Bernsen), also happens to be running for President of the US (I shit you not…how far that office must have fallen for a head of security of a resort to be in the running!), and has decided to game the election by getting everyone who takes a vacation to be implanted with thoughts to vote for him in the election.

Luckily, disgruntled employee and rebel leader, Mick Dourif (Bruce Campbell), figures out the dastardly ploy and tries to stop it. Unfortunately, the bad guys have found him, and ambush his hideout. He barely escapes, goes to the VR resort, and forces Menno to upload his mind into the VR system before he dies! Yep, you heard it right, ladies and gents – although it wasn’t in the specs, apparently the VR system has the ability upload a human mind. Then things get interesting when Mick’s girlfriend, Loria, finds Menno and forces him to download Mick’s mind into himself in order to find out what Mick knew about the dastardly plot! From there, the race is on.

The Bottom Line: Truly, the number of problems and plot holes in this are almost uncountable. I’ll give it three stars because the production values are at least decent, but the story sucks more than words can describe. OK, so a security manager is running for President of the US – perhaps he should consider campaigning instead of trying to game a few hundred votes by convincing those who show up in the morning to vote for him – just a thought! I could go on, but the fairy science shown in this doesn’t even try to hold itself together. Worse, Bruce Campbell – really, the only reason I wanted to see this (I LOVE Army of Darkness!!!), dies early enough on that you barely get a chance to enjoy him.