Overview: In the annals of cheesy time travel movies, few are known better than Timecop, which cleared over 100 million in world wide box office gross. Starring martial arts star, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Timecop has decent but low-budget FX, a fairly shallow notion of science and time quandaries, but does provide a face-paced cyberpunk action-thriller with decent amounts of butt-kicking and gun fighting. Like many of his movies, Van Damme plays more than one version of himself – in this case, he plays himself 10 years into the future.

The Story: In the near future (2004), time travel has now become possible. Unfortunately, there is a very real danger that going back in time will alter the present. To protect against potential abuse, a special police outfit called the “Time Enforcement Commission” is established to monitor and enforce time travel concerns. Max Walker (Van Damme) is selected for an interview to join. Unfortunately, events in the future have already changed his current circumstances, which lead to the death of his wife, Melissa (Mia Sara).

Ten years into the future, Max, still working at the Time Enforcement Commission, goes back in time to stop his former partner from attempting to splurge on low-price stocks in 1929 that will be worth a fortune in the future. In stopping his partner, Max uncovers a larger plot of time travel tampering that implicates a sitting Senator of the United States (Ron Silver). As Max starts to investigate, the bad guys begin significant tampering with the timeline. Upon return from one of Max’s fact finding trips, he sees that the future has been significantly altered, and the police force is being decommissioned.

Max convinces his former friend (the time altering apparently has affected their friendship) and police Commander, Eugene (Bruce McGill), to send him back in time to fix the damage done to the timeline. In doing so, Max has an opportunity to go back and save his wife. Things come to a head when Max and the Senator meet face to face (both current and future versions of each).

The Action: The reason you want to watch Timecop is primarily for the fast-paced action sequences. We get lots of Van Damme kicking, along with a nice smattering of gunfights, all in interesting locations. As a downside, only one or two of the bad guys put up a decent fight. So many of the action scenes involve Van Damme just wailing on “red shirt” henchmen.

The FX: The FX for Time Cop worked at the time, but now look somewhat dated. There are quite a number of time portal effects, along with a few burning and “people plasma” shots sprinkled throughout. The set designs are pretty decent, most notably the time portal device, which has a nice dirty, low-tech feel to it. Still, I wish they had done more with the time travel machine, which looks and works like a rocket version of Back to the Future’s flux capacitor.

The Acting: Considering this is a Van Damme movie, the acting is somewhat better than expected. Van Damme is his same self, which is to say “rather wooden.” But Mia Sara, Ron Silver and Bruce McGill turn in decent performances – certainly decent enough to work with the fast pacing.

Problems with Time: Timecop really can’t be used to spark interesting discussions on time travel. The questions with how and why things work are too numerous and problematic to engage in interesting discussions. Somehow, they are able to determine if someone has violated time, and can go and stop them, but they don’t seem to be able to go to the same place more than once – why? The same two people cannot occupy the same space – why? What happens if a guy is 80 years older and goes back an visits himself as a small child? Virtually none of the same cells will remain from the child – certainly no skin cells (nor would they for 10 years out, as was the case for the poor Senator) – so how does this constitute occupying the same space? When Max Walker spends the day jumping through time, the future is modified – and he seems to have lost 10 years worth of memories. What happened to the version of Max that lived those 10 years? Did he disappear, or has he simply not gotten home from work yet? One gets the sense that Max is just jumping alternate versions of the present – each one that he created – but the ideas are too shallow to make any real sense of this.

Bad Guys Have Limited Imagination: Like many bad guys, the imagination of the evil doers in Timecop is severely limited. Time travel is used to go back and engage in bank heists, make stock purchases that pay out 70 years in the future, and so forth. If one really had this technology cornered, it seems that there would be far better ways to generate income. With just an ounce of imagination, one could come up with a myriad of more interesting ways of generating power and influence than petty crime. What about a recorded interview with Jesus Christ? One would think this might generate lots more power and income than knocking off a confederate wagon train shipping small quantities of gold. Instead, the extent of Senator McComb’s ambition is to get rich, kill off potential enemies and then steal the presidential election.

The Bottom Line: Timecop is an enjoyable movie assuming you turn your brain off prior to watching. This approach generally works as the fast-paced nature of the movie serves to stop you from noticing too many issues. The action is good and the FX are passable, so if you want to kick back and enjoy some Hollywood martial arts wrapped up in a cyberpunk time travel flick, give it a go. I will say though that the quality of the DVD is horrid - so much so that I’m docking a star from my review. It’s got a lousy transfer, no extras, and is in full screen only. Common Universal – fix this!

Overview: Equilibrium is one of those movies that most everyone who knows of it has only seen it on DVD. Essentially thrown away by its studio, Equilibrium, created for a budget just over 20 million was given no dollars for marketing and made less than a million at the box office. But don’t let that sway you into thinking this movie is a piece of trash. Equilibrium has become a cult DVD hit. Made in Eastern Germany portion of Berlin, Equilibrium looks lots more substantial than the 20 million that went into it. Due to some terrific location choices, Equilibrium shines with a polish of a movie made for at least twice that budget. This, plus high quality acting and at least a modicum of interesting thought raise Equilibrium up from the pop-FX action-fest that it otherwise might have become.

The Setting: Set sometime in the 21st century, after a massive nuclear war has wiped out the majority of the human race, a 1984 style society has emerged after a method of full population control was discovered. The entire population is now given a daily dose of a drug called of Prozium. Prozium removes all semblances of emotion, and leaves the populace docile and controlled. Exhibiting emotion is now considered the greatest of all crimes, and is punishable by death. The all-knowing, all-controlling “Father” has constructed a group of supra-police called “clerics” who spend their time seeking out “sense offenders” and burning all remnants of the old way.

The Story: Cleric John Preston (starring Christian Bale) is among the best cleric enforcers. Along with his partner, Errol Partridge (Sean Bean), they spend their days burning heretical artifacts like the Mona Lisa and bringing sense offenders in for processing – a euphemism for baking people in a large oven. Unfortunately, Partridge has begun to have doubts about society, and has apparently stopped taking the drug. After Preston finds out and kills him, Partridge’s final thoughts compel Preston to revisit his own personal history in which he showed no emotions as his wife was burned for sense making. Preston begins to question the intense surveillance society.

In tracking down Partridge’s lover (Emily Watson), Preston’s world finally crumbles. Now he realizes he has presided over the destruction of humanity, and can no longer continue. Unfortunately, Dupont (Angus Macfadyen), the mouthpiece of the Father and leader of the Clerics has asked Preston to infiltrate the remainder of the resistance in order to crush them once and for all. But Preston is actually approached by the resistance leader, Jürgen (William Fichtner) who has noticed his recent spate of emotion. While Preston is still conflicted, Jürgen tries to enlist Preston in destroying the Father. Even worse, Preston’s ambitious new partner, Brandt (Taye Diggs) strongly suspects Preston of becoming a sense offender.

The Acting: The acting in Equilibrium is top notch. For my money, the best performance is turned in by Sean Bean, who, while only on screen for a brief time, really hammers home the essence of the message Equilibrium is conveying. But truly, all the main cast is terrific. Bale does a very good job in going through a conversion in losing his faith, while Fichtner, Macfadyen, Diggs and Watson all really add real believability to a somewhat forced story. Truly, the acting sets Equilibrium above a better than average genre movie to something really worth watching.

The Action - GunKata: Gunkata is Kurt Wimmer’s newly invented martial art – gun combat in close quarters. The idea is that body positioning and fluid movements, along with an intense understanding of one’s opponents’ most likely actions will allow the Gunkata master – Clerics, in Equilibrium – to be close to unstoppable. Many times in Equilibrium, Preston goes into a room LOADED of bad guys and wipes them all out. Does it look in the least realistic? Not at all, but it does look cool. The action sequences are hectic by design, but are always well planned out and executed. Even if you could care less about the message, if you like gun fighting, Equilibrium is for you!

The Visuals: The color of the day for Equilibrium is black, gray and occasionally white. Virtually everything is in black with brief highlights. This makes the instances where other colors are used, such as Preston’s Bruce Lee white outfit near the end of the picture, or the yellow sunset as seeming enormously more significant than they normally would seem. The other dominant theme is squared off architecture. Everything here is comprised of right angles to emphasize the controlled, boxed-in feel of the society. Even worse, the only prominent place that a circle appears is the processing factory, where sense-offenders are burned. Wimmer uses his most excellent set selections to optimal effect. The Cinematography choices always go for high shadows and contrasts, and usually come from interesting angles and contexts. Without trying to resort to high-tech wizardry, the world Wimmer ultimately creates is believable and otherworldly.

Centralized Control and the Surveillance Society: While the message is often obscured by the slick visuals and action sequences, Equilibrium’s basis is right out of the Metropolis, 1984 model. In looking at a situation where humanity has gone awry, the corrective procedure is one which divorces people from that which makes them human – their emotions. In this model, emotion control leads to thought control, which yields a smooth, functioning society. The warning is clear – if we move down a road that involves giving up our personal freedom, the danger is that we lose our technology. If I were to point out quibbles with this, the idea of the single, evil genius behind all of everything bad lessons the impact. The message conveyed is that society slowly made the choice to go this route – it would have been better to see remnants of that choice still guiding the society versus the simple “glorious leader” bad guy.

Is There Any Relevance to Today’s World? While only briefly mentioned by Sean Bean’s character, Partridge discusses the “trade off” that humanity made. In exchange for security and stability, they agreed to trade away their freewill. One gets the sense that this was a slow process at first, but which picked up dramatically once centralized control was present. While it’s a far stretch to imagine an emotion blocker being instituted, if we imagine freewill as a sliding scale, its clear that the debate between our personal freedoms and societal security measures are clashing right now. One can only imagine how much greater support the security side would be if in fact a nuclear conflict did break out. Unfortunately, this too is becoming far more likely – in 20 years, we can certainly envision that the number of groups and governments in possession of nuclear material will be far greater than today. The risk isn’t just that a small group of terrorists will use it. Unfortunately, pre-emption of conflict by larger countries could also lead to such a response. In short, as the concern for security and stability are greater, the pressure to impact personal freedoms will grow. If this isn’t a key ingredient for the creation of a cyberpunked world, I don’t know what would be.

Is Equilibrium Cyberpunk? This is an open question at some level, but I’ve come down on the “yes” side (obviously, as its reviewed here) for three reasons. First, in Equilibrium, centralized control dominates all “above ground” communication, while the horizontal control is the domain of the rebels. We don’t really see any instances of an internet, but we know it exists in some form, based on the rebel leader Jürgen’s comments. The only true downer from a cyberpunk control standpoint is the book used to record contraband – gimme a break, Wimmer! The second reason is the drug, Prozium. The bio-engineered drugs serve as a dominating form of technology that serves to dehumanize society. Until we separate out “Biopunk” movies from Cyberpunk, Equilibrium belongs here. Thirdly, the visuals TRULY fit into a post-Matrix cyberpunk visual style. Without hearing a lick of dialogue, if you only saw the visuals, you might consider sticking Equilibrium into the cyberpunk bucket.

The Bottom Line: Equilibrium makes the most of its 20 million dollar budget. Truly, after watching it, most people are shocked to find out how little was spent on making Equilibrium. From an execution standpoint, everything fits like a sleeck black glove. From the well integrated and motivating score, to the high quality acting, to the even pacing, Equilibrium works to create a very believable mood. On top of this, Equilibrium’s action is hot shit! Wimmer’s creation of GunKata - a new martial arts for close-combat gunfighting is interesting and innovative. However, the story itself is still a stretch, as is the believability of the Gunkata. In the end though, this is really a minor quibble, as the end product is intelligent enough to cause you to ponder while engaging enough to keep you entertained.

Overview: On its face, Cyborg 2087 sounds like the plot for the terminator: this guy from a dystopic future comes back to the past to stop the development of a new technology with lots of promise, that ends up destroying humanity as we know it; unfortunately, he is chased by these cyborg things who are bent on stopping him. While there are certainly some similarities, the differences are perhaps broader. Aside from the obvious budget differences, the plot in Cyborg 2087 involves a cyborg returning from the future versus a man, and he’s not trying to perform a “retroactive abortion,” he is doing something similar to Sarah Conner in T2 – he wants to stop the technology from being released at that time.

The Story Genius scientist Professor Sigmund Marx has created a technology that allows us to guide other people and influence their thoughts. Unfortunately, it turns out that this technology will be subverted by the government and military to engage in mass thought control of the population. In the future, humanity’s freewill has been crushed. Now a race of cyborgs have taken control to maintain stability. A small group of freedom fighters has come upon a method for restoring humanity. They have created a time machine, and intend to send back a cyborg who has had his “control” chip removed – the goal of which is to convince Professor Marx to abandon his experiment, or in worse case, to kill him.

The cyborg, Gareth A7 (played by Michael Rennie of Day the Earth Stood Still), doesn’t have access to all his technology when he was sent back. Worse, he has a homing beacon implanted in him that will lead the killer cyborgs, called tracers, right to him. He happens upon Professor Marx’s assistant, Dr. Sharon Mason (Karen Steele), and uses the perfected form of Marx’s technology to overwhelm her freewill and force her to assist him. From there it’s a race. The bad cyborgs from the future have arrived and are sporting killer ray guns. Gareth and Sharon must find the professor and convince him prior to the killer cyborgs finding him.

The Acting: The acting in Cyborg 2087 is fairly sub par. Aside from Michael Rennie, who I just enjoy seeing in another flick, the rest of the cast really falls short. Karen Steele over-emotes, as does her secondary love interest, Harey Carey Jr. The tracers are particularly bad, as are most of the bit characters. The Sheriff, played by Wendell Corey, while over the top, is at least well done. The bottom line here, with a budget as low as this one was, the only way Cyborg 2087 could have worked is if the acting paid off – unfortunately it didn’t.

The FX: Cyborg 2087 is very low budget, so we can’t expect much in the way of realistic effects. The extent of fanciness here involves making something disappear by taking another shot with the object removed. The ray guns have the cheesy thick white light look, and the outfits are anything but high tech. The opening shot of the futuristic city, which is nothing more than a painting, is at least interesting from the standpoint that it shows you what people in the sixties thought our futuristic cities would look like. At best, Cyborg 2087 tries for the cyberpunk western look, but this too is problematic. Perhaps the worst part of the FX deals with the tracers, who are heavyset guys running around in fake US army costumes. They really coulda spent at least a buck or two to buy an extra who at least was in shape. On top of this, the cartoonish sounding score is especially atrocious. If there were any quality scenes in this movie, the score ensures that they won’t be noticed.

Cyborgs: In Cyborg 2087, we are told that the cyborgs are a combination of man and machine, but we really don’t get much more of a breakdown than that. We know that they have wide open spaces in their bodies, and that they have the power of five or six men. Basically, the model we get here is of regular people that basically work like simple computers, and are able to have various computer chips embedded in them. In the end, its not a very believable view of cyborgs, and isn’t even a consistent one. We are told that cyborgs have no emotion, but somehow, Gareth falls in love with Sharon. The movie would have worked so much better had he let her die near the end versus what did happen (the heroic rescue).

The Bottom Line: Arthur Pierce’s script for Cyborg 2087 probably mostly decent (aside for the Hollywood happy ending factor), but unfortunately Franklin Adreon’s directing talents are not enough to bring it to a successful fruition. Far too frequently, Cyborg 2087 comes across as poorly done SciFi cheese. Again, had the acting been decent, one could easily overlook the low-qual FX. Unfortunately this is not the case. However, I did find it worthwhile to watch for one reason only – I loved Michael Rennie in the Day the Earth Stood Still, and really enjoyed seeing him in another flick. His acting is pretty much the same (Stoic, serious, impending doom looking demeanor), but at least we get to see him running around and performing action scenes.

Overview: Bubblegum Crisis (BGC) is one of the all-time classics of cyberpunk animation and anime in general. With a team of hawt chicks kicking butt in cute mecha outfits, while upbeat songs play in the background, Bubblegum Crisis has developed a franchise and staying power that few titles can match. Quite a number of sequels have been created as a testament to this. BGC is influential in a number of ways. Not only has its character animation been widely imitated, BGC was one of the first shows brought over in the US with subtitles. Overall, while there are some dark moments, the original BGC is an action-oriented, mostly light-hearted affair.

The Story: In 2025 an earthquake destroyed Tokyo. With the assistance of androids and robots created by the omnipresent and ever-powerful Genom corporation called boomers, Tokyo is rebuilt as Mega-Tokyo. Unfortunately, like Bladerunner, sometimes the boomers get out of line, often in fact. Boomers can appear human, but often this is just a fascade for a far more dangerous bio or mecha beast that can break-through the skin. In response to this danger, the authorities have created an under-funded agency called the AD Police, who’s primary mission is to handle boomer incidents. Unfortunately, often the boomers are too strong for the police to handle.

Enter the Knight Sabers. Headed up by Sylia Stingray, the billionaire daughter of the former Genom Corporation scientist who invented boomers, Sylia has advanced the research on her father’s mecha hard suits, and has recruited a team of three other hawt action chicks who, along with Sylia, comprise the Knight Sabers. All of them have secret identities. Priss is a pop singer, Nene is a hacker who works as a dispatcher at AD Police HQ, and Linna is an aerobics instructor. But all four of them have trained to become mercenaries extraordinaire in defense of boomer incidents.

Unlike most OAVs, BGC is designed with each episode being as self-contained story. While many of the stories string together, there are no cliffhangers here. Some of the episodes have at least a modicum of intrigue, but generally, when it gets right down to it, the goal is for the knight riders to kick some boomer ass. Action dominates, which works considering the relatively short time allotted to each story (up to 50 minutes). As the series continues, most of the storylines deal with the Kight Sabers foiling attempts by the Genom corporation to secure even more power. A few of the episodes have complex storylines, but the majority are straightforward, with evil genius types (boomer or human) directing boomer machines who create death and destruction.

For me, my favorite episode is Episode #5, where a two unique bio-based sexroid boomers who need blood for sustenance escape from escape Genaros, the SDPC’s orbital supply station for humanity’s moonbases, and make their way to Mega-Tokyo. The episode is far more complex than most, and touches on similar issues to Blade Runner, in that these Boomers just want to be free to live. Most of the boomers in BGC (other than the major villains) don’t really exhibit any form of sentience, but the ones in this episode (and the continuation in #6) are sentient and multidimensional.

Influential Visuals: Along with Akira, BGC animation has been very influential in transforming anime to the popular style we see today. Characters with overly large eyes and the familiar facial styles are on display in BGC, as are a bevy of experimental looks and styles. The look of anime changed dramatically from the late 80s to the early nineties – BGC will always hold a place in history due to its influence on this change.

Mega-Tokyo: BGC took the Blade Runner city visuals and applied them to anime, which was then imitated by most of the shows that followed. The cityscapes are modern looking with a blue background, with various green and red highlights. Grays and blues are shown in abundance, with occasional orange and red daytime scenes. Most of the shots are from above, focusing on the overall city-scape, but there are a number of ultra-modern buildings including the Genom’s Tower (which looks like the Blade Runner Terrel Corporation building) and the AD Police building – same as Blade Runner as well.

The Action: By far the best quality animation BGC brings is in their action sequences. While the rest of the series is really not very special, the action sequences are very well done. We get a variety of effects and perspectives that driving the relatively quick-pacing. In many of the scenes, the backgrounds show a variety of methods to enhance the speed and action. Often BGC engages in mecha-style battles (many of the bad-guy boomers are variations on mecha characters), but these are different from some in that the Kight Sabers are in nimble, tight-fitting suits, which increases the speed of the action.

The Music: Very few OVAs have music as recognizable as BCG. BGC is known for being one of the first (or at least one of the most recognized) to essentially embed music videos into their action sequences. The songs play a big part in Bubblegum Crises, with a large number of the action sequences and dramatic moments overlaid with song accompaniment. Almost twenty years later, this innovation has blossomed and morphed into what we see with FLCL for instance, where entire sequences are purely videos intertwined with the story.

The Bottom Line : While I’m generally not too excited about mecha anime (this is purely a preference on my part, and not a knock on mecha), I find BGC quite enjoyable. BGC is more like an earlier version of GITS SAC in that the focus is action first, and philosophy second. While a few episodes do explore what it means to be human, in all but a few cases, this is usually done in the context of a fairly light plot and intense action. Perhaps the philosophical aspects would have been highlighted had the series continued, but for legal reasons, BGC was cut short at only eight episodes. On pure enjoyment I’d probably rate the series a 7 out of 10, but due to its significant influence on anime and cyberpunk I’m giving it an extra star.

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Overview: It’s a rare instance when we find a movie that has all the trappings of a “B” SciFi shlock-fest – one with an overly cheesy name, a DVD cover advertising the movie as a classic drive-in flick (as was the original marketing art), one which has the standard “B” movie high-pitched moaning female chanting alien vocal track duing the credits and a creature-feature font typeface for its title – but in fact isn’t. Creature of the Humanoids practically screams “low-budget, exploitative SciFi crapfest” but…isn’t. Instead, after digging beneath the voluminous trappings of “B” cinema, we find a very intelligent, but low-budget movie – one which in 1962 has captured a good number of the cyberpunk themes that would dominate literature and movies twenty years later. Contrary to the DVD cover, which combines Creation of the Humans with War Between the Planets (which is pretty much what you think it is), this is a slow-paced, thinking person’s movie. Said another way, I’d probably be damn bugged if I had taken a date to see this at a drive-in, but as an intelligent movie for CyberpunkReview, it works fine.

The Setting: A nuclear war has taken place, resulting in the extermination of 92% of the human race. Those that remain are riddled with radiation poisoning, leaving very few couples who can create viable offspring. To keep civilization running, the remaining humans significantly ramped up their production of robots, which now number almost a billion in total, and handle most of the mundane tasks of society. Over time, advances in AI and automation have created a “race” of robots that have become sentient, and even more capable than their human counterparts. Because humans couldn’t stand working next to machine-looking things that seemed smarter than them, robots began being constructed to emulate humans. Now, 20% of all robots look humanoid in nature. However a backlash has formed - a hate group called the “Order of Flash and Blood” is pushing for the ban on all humanoid-looking robots. Because of a backlash by many humans, these robots can only look 70% similar to humans.

The Story: Capt. Kenneth Cragis (Don Megowan) is a leader in the Order of Flesh and Blood, the robot hate group. While on monitoring the activity of “clickers,” a derogatory term for robots, he notices some suspicious activity entering the robot shrine, a building off-limits to humans, which contains the central AI program that most robots now take direction from, and practically worship. In getting Flesh and Blood members to storm the shrine, they find a robot that looks almost fully human (96%) who has just killed a rogue scientist. As robots are all programmed to follow what essentially are Asimov’s three laws of robotics, this constitutes the first instance of a robot killing a human. Cragis sees this as an opportunity for the order to finally break-through and convince the human leadership of the righteousness of their cause. But in analyzing the human-looking robot, they discover something horrifying – it turns out that this robot actually “thought” he was a person, and appeared to have been created by taking the essence of a person recently dead, and replicating them inside of a robot.

Cragis also has another dilemma, his position in the order is now threatened, as its come to light that his sister has recently entered “rapport” with a robot named Pax. When in rapport, the robot and human essentially share the same mindset – everything his sister desires is instantly understood by the Pax and her needs are met. They are essentially soul mates. Cragis and his sister are on complete opposite sides of this issue, and there is no way for him to convince her otherwise. But things go from worse to weird when Cragis, and his newly found love (Erica Elliott) discover a truth about themselves that will shake the foundations of humanity.

The Production Values Suck: If I were grading Creation of the Humanoids based on production values alone it would be grateful to achieve even a three-star rating. From a production value standpoint, this movie is poorly made. The very few sets that exist look like warehouse sets quickly done up with extra junk from other SciFi movies and the only music accompaniment used everywhere (including love scenes) is the eerie “alien ship is coming” sound. The FX, especially of the robots are very poor, consisting primarily of bald-hair pieces and green makeup. Aside for a few of the leads (Don Megowan, the most important character is decent) is sub par at best. From a production value standpoint, Creation of the Humanoids seems far better suited to a play than a movie. If fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was the original intention of Jay Simms’ script. The DVD treatment, which provides a far better than expected transfer, essentially tries to mimic a drive-in movie experience. This is annoying it that there is no chapter feature. You are forced to click through the upfront stuff, the first feature, and the intermission crap to even get to Creature of the Humanoids.

If a Man Loses His Leg, Is His Soul Affected? this is the question posed by Creation of the Humanoids. If one answers that the soul is not affected, the follow-on thought is what if the whole body was replaced but that the essence that is “you” survives in an android shell. Do you still have a soul? If not, when did you lose it? Creation of the Humanoids provides us a world where humans are quickly becoming extinct, and where their salvation is going to be a situation where their personalities – all that makes them unique – are transferred into robotic bodies. They even will still be able to procreate, after a fashion. So the larger question this movie finally poses is: in this completely post-human world, does humanity still exist?

Replicants in Years Past: While Blade Runner is most often credited as having the definitive replicants, clearly this idea has been around for a lot longer. In Creation of the Humanoids, robots that are 96% human capability are created by taking a recently diseased person (within six hours of death) and extracting all that is unique about them (their memories, learning, skills, philosophy, etc.) and inserting it into a special thalamus chip to be integrated into a robot’s cerebral cortex processing unit. In doing so, they wipe all memory of the human’s last moments (their deaths). The end result are robots that still think they are human. For all times other than between 4:00 – 5:00 am, the robots act completely human. But during that one hour, they remember who they really are and report back to the robot society.

Asimov’s Laws Were Already Being Followed By 1962: Creation of the Humanoids gives us a glimpse of the incredible influence that Asimov’s “I, Robot” a mere 12 years later. The Robots in this already adhere to the laws, and have already worked out methods to break them. Robots must never harm other humans, and must always work to serve their best interests. Yet, unfortunately, humans don’t always know what is in their best interests, and thus, the robots must become subversive to meet this law.

When Robots Control Humanity: One of the more interesting arguments Creation of the Humanoids engages in is the question of what life will be like if and when the robots control mankind. In this movie, the robots have already gained control of who is in gets elected, even though the regular populace has no clue this has occurred. The robots also engage in subtle methods of mind control and brainwashing, all to make the populace more accepting of robot rule. Because the robots believe humans do things not in their best interests, it becomes their duty to “manage” human life. The question is then raised whether humanity will still want to pursue knowledge and self-betterment – after all, what’s the point if everything you even think you might want is automatically provided for you? The answer is rather depressing here – it has already happened – that we’ve just now realized it is almost irrelevant.

The Bottom Line: While the production values suck, the story in Creation of Humanoids is both complex and interesting. Many ideas presented are wonderful grist for later books and movies. As long as you realize that the production values in this flick make the old Dr. Who series look high-tech, you’ll probably enjoy it. While it is very slow-paced and only has about 5 separate scenes, the ideas presented are interesting enough to keep your attention. Aside for the commentary on race relations (obviously a big issue in the early 60s) Creature of the Humanoids makes us think through some interesting notions of post-humanity. While I’d give it 3 stars for its production values, I’d give it an 8 star rating for its story. This won’t appeal to everyone, but is certainly good enough that it shouldn’t be forgotten.

Overview: In yet another of the Alien/Terminator copycat movies, Death Machine is a low-budget, poorly thought out shlock-fest that tries to dazzle you with a largely incoherent in-depth plot and over-the-top acting. While another virtually unknown British Director, Richard Stanley, scored big in a similar but far more original copy-cat movie, Hardware, Stephen Norrington’s Death Match just doesn’t cut it. These types of movies live or die on the overall atmosphere and the quality of the fear the creature engenders. While Hardware excelled on both counts, Death Machine falls woefully short. Worse, Death Machine makes a lame attempt at humour by naming all the bit players with the names from the movies Norrington stole plot bits and visuals from (John Carpenter, Scott Ridley, Weyland, and Yutani)

The Story: In the near-future, the evil Chaank Armaments corporation has engaged in a number of shady, classified project that have resulted in dissapearances and potential deaths. Public outcry has gotten out of hand, so for damage control, they bring in an upstanding principled new chief executive named Hayden Cole (Ely Pouget), a hot chick with a porn past to inspire trust and confidence amongst the masses. As she delves into things, it’s clear that the board of directors wants nothing to do with providing full disclosure. Why? Because there is an evil genius mad scientist in the basement named Jack (Brad Dourif), who has the dirt on everyone, and is hard at work at making a death machine to keep everyone in line. Additionally, Jack has created a process for transforming humans into killer-cyborgs. Unfortunately, this process is flawed, and all the cyborgs end up dying.

Eventually, the hawt chief executive challenges Jack, and all hell breaks loose. She and a few others become trapped in the building with some would-be amateur freedom fighter cyberpunk types who have invaded the corporation in the hopes of destroying it. Now they are all just trying to escape the robot known as the War Beast. Hayden and Sam Raimi (John Sharian), the leader of the amateur terrorists, spend the rest of the movie trying to evade and eventually kill the War Beast. I could go into more of the plot, but truly, its just not worth it.

The Robot Monster: OK, so we have this really tough robot thing – virtually indestructible. Anyone wanna tell me why this robot has like a hundred rubber tubs hanging out, and nobody who fights it in hand-to-hand combat thinks of grabbing them? More to the point, why don’t the thousands of rounds of bullets affect the tubes? Bottom line, this robot was more silly than scary. In Hardware, the robot was continually shown moving quickly in low-light situations. This allowed Stanley to get away with a low-tech, but very believable robot. Unfortunately, Death Machine doesn’t take this approach – it shows the robot in detail to make sure you see its faults. Color me not impressed.

Death Machine’s Approach to Cyborgs: In Death Machine, the Chaank Armaments Corporation creates cyborgs by wiping someone’s memory and uploading it with detailed weapon systems training, and simple goals (e.g., protect me, seek out and kill “guy X”). In short, its approach to cyborgs assumes the human mind is synonymous with a hard disk. They even have an instance where a key character’s personality “backed-up” and then wiped from his mind to allow the “warrior personality” to be installed, and then later, they reload the initial personality. Puleeze, Norrington! I’m sure you coulda come up with a marginally believable cyborg warrior rationale. Too bad you didn’t take the time to think of one.

The Bottom Line: Truly, to even have a chance of being watchable, Death Machine would have needed to incorporate a heavy dose of T&A. While Ely Pouget has the looks, this never materializes. This is all the more annoying in that the inclusion of the porn reference flat out portends juicy T&A. Instead, we’re left with a shlock “B” movie, absent of T&A, without the effects, acting, plot or monster to carry the day. Brad Dourif’s character, while mildly amusing is just too over-the-top to stomach, and nobody else other than Pouget even stands out. Even worse, they screw up what should have been a very simple ending (this may be the only original part of the movie - in retrospect, Norrington should have copied this as well), leaving us with a almost complete let down, and no payoff for sticking around for 2 hours. In short, I don’t see much to recommend here.

Overview: Yes, the majority of the population was disappointed with Matrix Revolutions. Many voiced issues with various movie aspects such as dialogue and acting. More still complained that the overall story was non-sensical, with many points seemly completely incoherent. Some even commented that even though it was incoherent, they absolutely loved the action sequences. Personally, I found an altogether different movie. At times I almost felt Matrix Revolutions was purposely written for someone exactly like me. My background in cybernetics seemed wonderfully tailored to understanding the trilogy from a science fiction perspective (versus the philosophical perspective that is most often explored) – as rarely do I find a symbolic struggle of positive and negative feedback systems so overtly played out in film. Strangely enough, many others tend to have this same sentiment (that the movie was MADE for them), although their backgrounds are very different from mine. In this sense, for those that LOVED Matrix Revolutions, something about the movie just “clicked” for them – in most cases, that special something was different for each person. While yes, the action is astounding, as are the visuals, its this aspect of Matrix Revolutions which is most intriguing to me. It may not be for everyone, but for those that like it, its almost tailor made.

The Story: Matrix Revolutions is the third installment of the Matrix Trilogy, where Neo’s decision at the end of Reloaded causes a final confrontation between Zion and the Machines. In rejecting the Architect’s control system, Neo has thrown the relationship between humanity and the machines in a completely unpredictable direction. The machines are quickly digging to reach the last human city of Zion, while Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and a host of others look to recover from their last ditch attempt meeting with the Architect at the end of Reloaded.

Nothing was at it seemed. The history of the one was a lie, all part of an elaborate control system. Now, in less than twenty hours, the machines will penetrate Zion’s defenses, and potentially destroy humanity forever. Worse, Neo’s mind has somehow separated from his body and now lies comatose next to Bane on-board the Ship called the Hammer. Morpheus is still despondent about the false prophecy, and the Zion’s defenses have been all but wiped out by a premature EMP pulse.

It turns out that Neo’s mind has been trapped in a place in-between the Matrix and the Machine City, inside something called the Mobile Avenue Train Station (better known as limbo, which is an anagram for “Mobile” Avenue). Unfortunately, this is controlled by the Merovingian. Trinity and Morpheus, along with Seraph must now convince the Merovingian to let Neo Free. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith has virtually taken over the Matrix with duplicates of himself while Zion prepares for the attack of the Machines, and decide to place virtually all their resources into holding the dock. As things become clear, Neo decides the only way he can save Zion is to personally go to the virtually impenetrable Machine City. Meanwhile, as the Dock Fight goes from bad to worse, Niaobi (Jada Pinkett Smith), Morpheus and company race back in the Hammer to help save Zion with the humanity’s last remaining EMP.

Revolutions is a War Movie: Whereas the first movie, the Matrix involved a personal awakening, and Matrix Reloaded was almost more of a chase movie, Matrix Revolutions is more a war movie than anything else. In this sense, each of the three movies are very different from one another. Many new characters are introduced in Revolutions, while some of the staples of the first two movies take more of a back seat. We see less of Morpheus here, for instance, but are almost bombarded with a myriad of secondary characters, each intended to bring us a sense of drama associated with the enormity of their undertaking. While one can discuss how well each of the minor characters worked, the need for their inclusion is rather clear – without them, the scale of the conflict doesn’t really work.

The Matrix Trilogy as a Participative Movie Watching Experience: Most movies are meant to be conveyed in a rather passive manner – one which may require the view to actively pay attention to what transpires but doesn’t require them to actively think about what they have seen. Conversely, quite a few cyberpunk flicks are just the opposite – animes like Serial Experiments Lain or Fragile Machine, extreme Japanse Cyberpunk flicks like Tetsuo, indie flicks like Puzzlehead, or even action flicks like Casshern all require the viewer to spend significant time actively thinking through the implications of what they just saw. The Matrix Trilogy, and especially Matrix Revolutions flat out requires active participation to make sense of it. Arguments abound on this point as many critics consider this a sign of bad movie making, while many Matrix fans respond with the inevitable, “You just don’t get it” comment, as if those who hate Revolutions are somehow intellectually inferior. My take on this is that this is more a sign of preference in movie tastes. Some people (like me) LOVE to encounter movies that take more than one viewing to really understand, whereas others absolutely hate watching films like this. Regardless where you come down on this, your perception of whether you like Revolutions or not will in large part be answered by your preferences on this scale.

The Power of The One: The Oracle makes clear in her meeting with Neo that the “power of the one” comes from the Source, and that this power is necessary to communicate with the source. From a SciFi standpoint, the explanation for this is clear – the power of the one is based on the sentient learning program embedded in Neo from birth (the Architect tells Neo this at the end of Reloaded). As is documented in my Man-Machine-Interface essay, this is what gives Neo the power to attack the machines in the real world. Neo has Sysadmin-like powers so that he (the sentient program portion of Neo) is able to reboot the Matrix.

• The Matrix Trilogy: A Man-Machine Interface Perspective

Getting Back to a Steady State: In Reloaded, Neo, with significant prompting from the Oracle has effectively wiped out the Architect’s negative feedback control system (meaning a cybernetic control system that “negates change from an initial goal state). The thresholds were exceeded, and the entire control system spun out of control. This, after all was the Oracle’s purpose. From a cybernetic perspective, the Oracle’s goal was to create a positive feedback loop (increasing change from an initial goal state). In doing so, she effected the complete destruction of the negative feedback system that had managed human-machine relations for the better part of 600-800 years. When a cybernetic control system exceeds its thresholds, it is possible for the system to again regain a steady-state, but almost never is it possible to return to the previous steady state. This truly is the Oracle’s purpose. By effecting out-of-control change (by creating the anomaly that is Mr. Smith), the Oracle created a situation where both the humans and machines would need to work together to stave off elimination of their species. The proposed steady state (peace) would have to be founded on a completely different set of assumptions. This would necessitate changes in the operation of the Matrix, and a far more integral relationship between the humans and machines.

The Philosophical Aspects: Matrix Revolutions, even moreso than the previous films, is replete with interesting philosophical references from Hinduism, Christianity and various writers that ideas such as freewill and determinism, the nature of reality, the notion of purpose, and so on. In totality, the Matrix is a virtual cornucopia of ideas which ends up leading towards a larger integration of purpose, one which serves to unite the needs of man and machine in their struggle to survive. That these ideas are melded into a very compelling story – one which can almost completely divorce itself from the SciFi aspects and still work is pretty amazing. One can easily view the trilogy from the perspective of Neo as a messianic figure who’s story arc involves the coming of age, the sheding the bonds of slavery, and eventually the recapturing of humanity’s (and the machine’s) salvation. The Matrix Trilogy is one of the very few movies which have spurned an ever increasing number of philosophical analysis books – truly this is rather unique, and itself something to be celebrated.

The Acting: While much has been said about some uneven performances, by and large, the leads in Matrix Revolutions turn in very solid performances. Keanu Reeves deserves additional credit for the incredible work he in preparation for the part – his martial arts and wire work in Revolutions are just terrific. Hugo Weaving turned in a supporting performance worthy of what I would consider an Oscar nomination. His monologue (“Why Neo, why?) near the end is absolutely riveting. However some of the secondary actors, most notably the “kid” (Clayton Watson) were pretty bad. Also, there were some dialogue issues in Revolutions which could have been worked a bit more (shortening the Trinity “you gave me one more chance” scene, for instance). In light of the incredibly ambitious goals for Matrix Revolutions, its not too surprising that some of the details could have been worked more.

The FX: Matrix Revolutions has some of the most impressive FX on film. Regardless whether or not you hate the film, the quality and enormity of the FX we see in Revolutions is a wonderful cap to the series. From an FX standpoint, the Dock Fight was an absolutely monumental undertaking. This combination of CG, miniatures, full-sized models with human actors, and motion-capture provided one of the great battles ever seen on film. Because of the speed and chaos, like many elements in Revolutions, it really does take an extra watching or two to really get the sense of what’s happening. But once you aren’t overwhelmed by the enormity of it, the pace of the battle and the actions of the machines make sense. In fact, it becomes clear that the dock fight is one of the most significantly choreographed combat scenes ever put on film.

The Visuals: Visually, Matrix Revolutions is a stunning movie. While the bulk of the visuals use a blue-red color sceme, the familiar green matrix colors are also prominently displayed. Similarly, we get bursts of yellow-orange colors denoting machines disconnected from the Matrix. Shadows are liberally used in the larger panoramic scenes, while many of the close-ups are more starkly lit. Overall, the mood of the blue-red color scheme is reminiscent of Star Wars’ Empire Strikes Back, in that we get the same darkened atmosphere.

The Score: Don Davis’ music for Matrix Revolutions provided a terrific accompaniment. The diversity, from industrial sounds to haunting choral arrangements served to heighten the tension and energy at pivotal scenes. Probably the highlight of this was at the beginning of the Super Burly Brawl between Neo and Mr. Smith where the piece, “Neodammerung” signals the final confrontation.

The Bottom Line: The Matrix Trilogy is one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken in movies. It combines almost two distinct storylines – one based on philosophy and religion and the other based on science fiction – with revolutionary effects, great action and truly interesting ideas throughout. As a cyberpunk dystopia, it’s hard to find a situation worse than the one posed in the world of the Matrix. While the majority of its viewers found fault with Revolutions, especially the ending, I personally found enormous satisfaction out of both the ending and the movie as a whole. While I certainly agree that there are some acting and dialogue issues, as a whole, Revolutions was a terrific ending an absolutely terrific trilogy.

Matrix Revolutions Page 2: More Screencaps –>>

Overview: While Alien 1 and 2 were both stellar movies, the later two sequels definite suffer in comparison. Still, Alien Resurrection provides a significantly different Ripley than is encountered in the first three movies. Ripley is a clone, and an altered one at that. In fact she’s a merging of both the alien and human. With a significantly different approach to visuals and storytelling, Alien Resurrection may not equal the quality of the first two, but certainly can be considered original, which is sometimes a feat in itself for a sequel. The cyberpunk elements, while present, are still sedated, similar to the first Alien (I don’t really consider Alien 2 or 3 to have enough to consider them cyberpunk).

The Story: Two hundred years after her death, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has been cloned for the purpose of giving birth to the Alien Queen inside of her at the end of Alien 3. It’s not the corporation this time, instead it’s the good ‘ole government. While it’s never really fully explained how the melding of the two came about, you basically have to “roll” with it if you want to enjoy the movie. In any event, Ripley somehow survives the birth of the Alien, and is kept alive for “study” purposes.

Meanwhile, the Alien Queen that Ripley births requires hosts for her eggs. Enter a group of mercenaries led by Elgyn (Michael Wincott). His group also includes Winona Ryder, Dominique Pinon, Ron Perlman, Gary Dourdan, and Kim Flowers. The mercenaries have captured a ship full of people in suspended animation, and have brought the victims to the military research ship for money and other goodies (including a few days sleep in a regular bed). Things go bad when fanatatical crazed head scientist, Dr. Jonathan Gediman (Brad Dourif) makes the mistake of leaving three of the Alien births in the same cage. Two of the aliens kill the third, who’s acidic innards then create a hole in the floor, thus forming a jail break. From there, its on – aliens are in control and have a field day in eating up the poor humans who can’t escape on time. But unfortunately for the Queen, her DNA has been melded with Ripley’s and her second generation offspring has turned out differently than intended.

Ripley is Different in Resurrection: In Resurrection, we don’t get the tired, beaten down Ripley from the previous two movies who somehow manages to persevere and survive. Instead, Weaver takes to her genetic change with a gusto that mixes just the right mix of alien swagger, camp, and tender humanity. Most importantly, Weaver doesn’t take herself too seriously here. Ripley’s smirks more than anything else make the impossible set-up bearable. Its almost as if she’s saying, “Yeah, this is Frankenstein 4, but you knew the monster (me) needed to come back from the dead if there was to be a sequel, right? Just roll with it and we’ll be OK.” In short, Weaver almost single-handedly makes this sequel work. Ripley’s one liners (such as, “Who do I have to fuck to get off this ship?”) sometimes even come close to equaling those in Aliens. However, this approach can only go so far - if they ever plan on doing an Alien 5, they’re gonna need to revive Abbot and Costello!

The Rest of the Cast: While Weaver shines, the same cannot be said of the rest of the cast. Some of the member are really hit or miss, while others fail altogether. Winona Ryder’s role was a bit too much for her to pull off. First she had to be a believable mechanic (Kaylee, she’s not!), and then had to be an undercover resistance member and finally had to work as a {SPOILER – highlight to read} second generation android. I don’t know who could have worked all three of these aspects into a coherent whole, but Ryder was not able to pull it off. Although, Ryder does shine in some of the scenes – especially those that are similar to Ripley’s role in the first movie where the Ryder is struggling to maintain sanity when everything is stacked against them. For other examples, Brad Dourif as the crazed scientist is too over the top, and Dan Hadaya as the military commander comes off as a complete imbecile. Two notable standouts are mercenaries Ron Perlman and David St. James – both turn in very solid and interesting performances.

The DNA Mixing: OK, the DNA mixing explanation is just too hokey to work. Joss Whedon deserves some credit for at least not running away from this impossible task – instead he makes it a centerpiece to the story (but it still doesn’t’ work – then again, I don’t think anything would). Basically they needed a way of both recreating Ripley will still keeping her memories intact. Their work-around is to state that Ripley’s and the Alien’s DNAs melded together (I suppose this happened in the lava? Good thing they were able to retrieve it, ey?). OK, fine, but I have a few questions: Aliens are uniquely different from humans but their DNA is so close that its not distinguishable form one another? Or assuming the DNA was melded, how exactly did they know what they were looking at? More to the point, how did they figure out (even with lots of trial and error) to make two completely separate organisms out of the DNA? But even taking the ocean of salt needed to buy that explanation, how is it that an alien organism who grows by eating the material in the lungs is able to read Ripley’s memories and retain them? Again, while this clearly is problematic, you really just have to roll with it if you want to enjoy Resurrection.

Genetic Manipulation Scare: Probably the scariest aspect of Alien Resurrection is the notion that in the semi-near future, genetics will be advanced enough and so well understood that even your basic crackpot scientists with the right equipment can play Josef Mengele in experimenting with mixing lifeforms to their hearts content. One can imagine a number of variations to this, but the jist of the concern is that its not too far a stretch to imagine that in the near future, less savory governments or corporations may be lured to do various genetic trials of this kind in the pursuit of fame and profit. This concept in Resurrection is as cyberpunk as one can get.

The Android: Unfortunately the back story is glossed over, but in Alien Resurrection, the androids have somehow developed a second generation android, one who is not beholden to human command. Not surprisingly humanity targeted them for termination, which caused the remaining second generation androids to burn out their communications devices and go into hiding. In Alien Resurrection, it’s the android who holds the tenets of humanity most dear. The android is more concerned with the fate of mankind than all the shallow and flawed humans in this movie. The android is even religious. One wishes this aspect of the androids was explored. If they truly feel that they indeed have a purpose for existence, how is this rationalized, and how have they changed the concept of a human deity to accommodate their self-worth?

The Visuals: Director Jeunet and visual effects supervisor Pitof deserve credit for creating some wonderful visuals in Alien Resurrection. Resurrection contintually treats us to some wonderfully composed shots – shots that far exceed the qualities of the acting. Even if the plot and acting turn you off, the cinematography, wonderful set pieces, models and creature FX will help keep Alien Resurrection bearable. Like many cyberpunk films, a single color dominates the film – yellow in this case. Yes there are some blacks, but yellow seems to permeate all the key scenes.

The Bottom Line: Yes, Alien Resurrection has an extremely problematic story within a flawed movie, but it ends up being more fun than it probably deserves. Even though the rest of the cast doesn’t always support her, Sigourney Weaver turns in a terrific performance. This, along with the originality, the wonderful cinematography and FX make Alien Resurrections a step up from Alien 3, and worthy enough to watch. While the cyberpunk elements are subdued, the android along with the genetics and dystopic civilization (destroyed by human wastes and technology) are enough to include it in this site. Alien Resurrection won’t flip your world like the first two did, but its still worth a watch.

Overview: In a very faithful adaptation to Philip K. Dick’s story of the same name, Linklater treats us to an interesting, slow moving story about abuse – abuse of power, drug abuse, abuse fo friendships, and abuse of the self. While most of the publicity about Scanner Darkly is about the rotoscoping technique used, the story itself is good enough that it probably could have worked in live action as well. A Scanner Darkly is engaged in a slow-opening process – hopefully you all get to see soon in a theater near you.

The Setting: Seven years into the future, a drug known as Substance “D” has transformed society. People are divided into addicts and those who haven’t taken Substance “D.” Society is quickly collapsing. In response to this threat, the government has transformed the society into a surveillance state, where neighbors spy on neighbors, and personal freedoms have been minimized. Everything is organized for instant observation – license plates are now bar-coded, and security is all DNA based. Trust has all but vanished in the world where Scanner Darkly resides. In its place, we have people who are constantly concerned about each other’s ulterior motives, and think nothing of stabbing someone in the back if only to win short term gains.

The Story: Scanner Darkly takes place seven years into the future and follows the plight of a close-knit group of addicts living outside of Anaheim, California. Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is works as a reluctant undercover police officer (called “Officer Fred” at work), who lives with group of addicts that he eventually needs to perform surveillance on. Bob no longer believes in what he is doing, but still goes through the motions. At work, all the police wear “scrambler suits” to ensure nobody knows who they are. As the story progresses, we get to see the absurd lives that each of the addicts lead. Bob’s girlfriend (Winona Ryder) is a coke addict who freaks out if touched; his friend Charles (Rory Cochrane) sees insects crawling over him at all times, and his two room mates are clearly fried beyond all recognition.

Unfortunately for Bob, his addiction is growing too. His grasp on reality starts to weaken as the hallucinations increase. He starts seeing his room mates as huge insects. Worse, one of his room mates (Robert Downey Jr.) visits the police department to narc on Bob. Bob, as the disguised Officer Fred, has the task of taking down his room mate’s statements and investigating them. As the movie proceeds, Bob becomes more disillusioned with his job and life, and begins to realize that he is losing his humanity.

An Excersize in Duality: Scanner Darkly sets a number of issues up in a duality. We have left brain – right brain separation as a side effect from extreme exposure to Substance “D,” we get surveillance and security opposing personal freedoms, and the two doctors treating Bob overtly represent the left and right hemispheres. Everything in Scanner Darkly is about dualities of tension, and the descent of humanity in the face of this tension.

The Paranoia: A Scanner Darkly delves into the paranoia mindset that develops when drug use combined with an out of control surveillance society has taken hold. Personal rights and individual freedoms are significantly subordinated in a society where the government is after the supposed drug barons. One begins to question, however, whether the drug barons themselves are just yet another tool by the government to gain complete control over the population. The idea of government abuse of power permeates virtually every scene. The ranting sessions within the drug addict group are all based on paranoid delusions about what the government is currently doing to them. Worse, some of their “paranoid delusions” end up being true!

Drugs Are Bad, K? Scanner Darkly pounds this message in as many ways as possible. Wanna screw up your perception? Substance “D” is for you! But don’t worry, its effects are not always permanent, just most of the time! Within the addict group, we see different people in various states of insanity. The message is clear – once you’re on this stuff, the descent into insanity is all but assured.

The Rotoscoping: The rotoscoping in Scanner Darkly works well as a device to create an atmospheric, otherworldly film, even though most of the scenes almost came off as red-neck central. Unlike Waking Life, where the hand drawn animation on top of live action is wildly uneven (on purpose) with the characters, for the most part the rotoscoping just gives it an ambiance. Also, the rotoscoping provides a wonderful base for the various hallucinations that happen in the course of the movie. Linklater’s rotoscoping technique seems to work best when there isn’t that much action on-screen. In some of the movement scenes (car riding, running, etc.), there is almost no difference between the rotoscoping and live action. There was also a lot of variances with the black lines around the faces – mostly this was pretty subdued, but in a few scenes, the black lines almost dominated the scene.

The Acting: For the most part, the acting is terrific in Scanner Darkly. Robert Downey Jr. especially shines, but Reeves’ performance fits perfectly for a man overtaken by events. Winona Ryder has some pretty solid moments (especially at the end), as does Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane. The better scenes usually involve Downey and another character involved in truly bizarre conversations. Some with Downey and Harrelson in particular are pretty funny.

The Bottom Line: A Scanner Darkly is a movie with great acting, interesting discussions and a very powerful ending. That said, some parts of Scanner Darkly come off as overkill (the drugs are bad part, for instance), whereas others could easily have benefited from more elaboration. Still, these are minor complaints, as the overall movie has terrific acting, a great score (by Radiohead), and an interesting, well constructed message. Fair warning though - this is NOT an action movie. The vast bulk involves people milling around and talking, without any real action ever taking place. As long as action isn’t necessary for you to enjoy a good cyberpunk flick, give Scanner Darkly a try.