Look, it was the nineties, okay? We didn't know how this whole internet thing was going to pan out. We barely understood it at all, to be honest. We were just very excited about it! Who knew that, looking back, the likes of Hackers and Johnny Mnemonic would go from being the height of cool to absolute laughing stocks, incredibly dated and hopelessly ignorant attempts to capture the technological zeitgeist and failing miserably. Surely you wouldn't blame dear old Denzel, either, for starring in one of these hilariously awful attempts to cash in on the craze for near-future sci-fi which has that tell-tale obsession with virtual reality? You probably can blame him when the film in question was 1995's Virtuosity, which doesn't even manage to venture into so-bad-it's-good territory. It's just plain bad. Washington plays Parker Barnes, a former police officer who was put into prison for killing political terrorist who keeps getting into virtual reality scenarios for...some reason. Anyway, the plot is that a serial killing simulation somehow gets into the real world and the LAPD task Barnes with tracking him down and returning him to virtual reality. Which is not a thing that can happen. It is not a thing that will ever happen. It is not a thing that makes sense even in this brain dead movie. Denzel does the best he can with what there is; the problem is, there really isn't very much. He certainly manages his best to keep a straight face whilst reciting long pieces of made-up computer jargon and future slang, and he barely even smirks whilst he's squeaking around in the weird PVC bondage suits the police have to wear. We assume that he and Russell Crowe, who plays the serial killer, had a fun time hanging out on set. We'd much rather watch those interactions than this cack-handed attempt at reaching for the future which is stuck so helplessly in the past - Washington's performance included.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
