Latex Movie Review: Virtuosity

In 1992 Director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett wrote a script for a techno-thriller called Cyber God which studio New Line Cinema agreed to green light provided that they change the main character into a gardener and retitle it The Lawnmower Man. New Line's reason for wanting his was that they held the rights to a short Steven King story by the same name, and those rights were about to expire. Released in theaters as Steven King's: The Lawnmower Man it had nothing to do with the King story, which is why he sued New Line to take his name off the film. Even with the controversy, The Lawnmower Man made $12 million dollars in profit, enough of a success for Leonard and Everett to want to work together on another techno-thriller. The followup was called Virtuosity, this time with a script written by Eric Bernt.

Where The Lawnmower Man told the story of a man who is able to convert himself into pure energy and enter the internet through a virtual reality program, Virtuosity is the opposite, the story of a computer programed AI character that figures out how to leave the computer and enter the real world. The story begins with Parker Barnes ( Denzel Washington ) a former police detective who is now a prison inmate after shooting a terrorist suspect and his men to death after they killed his family. The police force has developed a virtual reality program for officers to train in, and are using prisoners to test the technology. Since Parker is a former detective he is talked into strapping himself into the virtual reality machine in trade of a reduced sentence. But one of the AI programs, a nasty serial killer called SID 6.7 ( Russell Crowe ), figures out how to disable the fail safe and kills one of the prisoners trying to arrest him and nearly kills Parker as well. Deciding that SID 6.7 is too dangerous the police decide to have him deleted, but his programmer, who himself is slightly deranged, has other ideas. Another inventor at the lab he works in has developed an android using nanotechnology, having a body literally made up of millions of molecular sized nanite robots, that can take any shape and can absorb any computer program. The inventor is tricked into implanting SID 6.7's program into one of the androids, and once it has taken on SID 6.7's shape and intelligence kills the inventor and walks off into the real world as an unstoppable serial killer.

Realizing that SID 6.7 has been released into the real world the police decide that the only person who can possibly track him down is Parker Barnes, this because Parker was the only person to successfully hunt SID 6.7 down in the virtual reality simulator. Barnes is implanted with a tracker chip and given a couple of days to stop SID 6.7. If successful his prison sentence will be commuted. From there Virtuosity turns into a fairly standard police-drama with the only novelty being that SID 6.7 is able to withstand being shot multiple times, and is able to heal himself by ingesting glass. Russell Crowe steals the movie as the demented killer SID 6.7 in a star making performance. While Virtuosity turns into a fairly standard formula picture, it is Crowe's performance that makes it worth watching. Other notable cast members are Kelly Lynch as the psychiatrist Dr. Mason Carter who insists on accompanying Parker while he hunts down the killer android. She has been featured in two other Latex Movie Reviews, wearing a latex catsuit in Mr Magoo and a latex bodysuit in Charlie's Angels. Here she wears a conservative pants suit for the entire movie. Playing her 10 year old daughter is actress Kaley Cuoco in her first movie.

THE SCENE:
Yes, Traci Lords is in this movie, and yes she does wear a black patent leather outfit which consists of a bustier, tight pants and a choker. Not the latex outfit so many seem to remember, but still very attractive. The problem is she is barely in the movie. Her role is called Media Zone Singer in the credits, and it has no dialog. She is first seen at 38 minutes into the movie in the center of a busy night club that SID 6.7 has entered, again at 40 minutes, and again at 41 minutes when SID 6.7 starts shooting the patrons. He warns Traci not to run, which she does anyway with another patron. The other patron gets it in the head and Traci safely makes it out the door, but also out of the movie for good. The majority of her screen time is just flashes of her up on the stage. You would be much better off watching her music video for the song Fallen Angel than this movie. It is comprised of footage from the movie along with some footage that was cut from the movie. Yes, it appears that a full performance of her singing the song was shot for the movie and not used. It appears that Virtuosity only exists on DVD as a no-frills version with the only bonus material being the trailer, so do not count on finding the Fallen Angel video on the DVD. You will have to settle for Youtube.