Virtuosity

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, dialogue, 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.

This is a fun but very flawed film. The reasons for Denzel Washington’s character’s presence are so broken. It makes no sense. But his acting is excellent so I’m going to ignore that one. Russell Crowe on the other hand is terrible in this, so much over acting at best, so terrible at worst. Try watching his character make music in the night club, it’s the definition of pure cinematic torture. I don’t think you can blame the director for that, it’s got to be Crowe wanting to play SID 6.7 that way. There is great production design, like really good, one of my favourite aspects. The effects are solid, they work really well and match the movie, only one VFX shot looked rubbish. The story is very flawed. The fighting looks pretty bad compared to The Matrix (1999) or Iron Monkey (1993). The music hasn’t dated well but I didn’t mind that, it gave me a warm feeling of nostalgia. It really feels like Hollywood in the eighties filmmaking, like they never moved on. If it wasn’t for the bad writing and Russell Crowe then this would be a good film. For all its flaws it held my attention. The second half is less interesting than the first and the ending was a bit of a rushed anticlimax.

It hungers for more character development and more work on the script. The film does have a couple of intelligent scenes, and a few star actors, but it fails to entertain.

After watching this i was stricken by the poor quality. So much so that i took to the web to figure out how i could have missed the film. I wanted to read all the hilarious reviews disembowling the thing. I wanted to watch youtube to see what assuredly would be a ton of hilarious but honest breakdowns. I quickly found out that wasnt to be. The first thing i watched stated unironically that its "the best denzel washington film" which is frankly shocking considering he has very few lines, usually just silence. I then viewed a gentleman's video where he says "its a 90s hidden gem" and he was super excited to open up a new bluraycopy. They released it on blu ray. Even though even for its time many visuals are impressively bad. I then saw something where the guy said "russel Crowe did a great job, melding effectively a host of serial killer ghost i guess? Souls? But i thought wow, i didnt find a single shot where crowe wasnt bugeyed and mugging, or pulling camp that makes ones head spin. Although im pretty sure both he and denzel never existed in the same space during filming. So, hard to blame him i suppose. Maybe its an artistic choice. Pretty sure its because of extensive redo filming or an actor falling through during the shoot. And the guy that plays russels weasely helper guy's voice is one grating ordeal after another. Its also very concerning when they cant seem to pin down what time period its set in. Maybe they had budget but then it got reduced? Theres also protracted scenes that go nowhere. Its funny too how many innocents denzel murders. It reminded me of team america but in a bad way.

Easily the stupidest big budget picture of the 90's. It's shocking that it didn't kill Crowe's fledgling career. Any time Washington acts like a haughty, egotistical jerk, friends can point to this steaming present and several other absurd cash-grabs he did to shut him up.