Virtuosity (1995)

A virtual-reality serial killer manages to escape into the real world.

Director:

Brett Leonard

Writer:

Eric Bernt

Stars:

Denzel Washington, Kelly Lynch, Russell Crowe

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Denzel Washington	...	Lt. Parker Barnes
Kelly Lynch	...	Madison Carter
Russell Crowe	...	SID 6.7
Stephen Spinella	...	Lindenmeyer
William Forsythe	...	William Cochran
Louise Fletcher	...	Elizabeth Deane
William Fichtner	...	Wallace
Costas Mandylor	...	John Donovan
Kevin J. O'Connor	...	Clyde Reilly
Kaley Cuoco	...	Karin Carter
Christopher Murray	...	Matthew Grimes
Heidi Schanz	...	Sheila 3.2
Traci Lords	...	Media Zone Singer
Gordon Jennison Noice	...	Big Red (as J. Gordon Noice)
Mari Morrow	...	Linda Barnes

Storyline

The Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) has developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity which is synthesized from the personalities of more than 150 serial killers. LETAC would like to train police officers by putting them in VR with SID, but they must prove the concept by using prisoners as test subjects. One such prisoner is ex-cop Parker Barnes. When SID manages to inject his personality into a nano-machine android, it appears that Barnes might be the only one who can stop him.

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Plot Keywords:

virtual reality | serial killer | ex cop | android | shiv | 

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Taglines:

Justice needs a new program

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Genres:

Action | Crime | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong futuristic violence, some brutal beatings and some language

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 August 1995 (USA)

Also Known As:

Asesino virtual

Filming Locations:

Hollywood Forever Cemetery - 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$30,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$24,048,000 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Michael Douglas was originally cast as Parker Barnes.

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Goofs

Sid gets his hand blown off by a shotgun, then uses the same hand to leap over the edge of the boxing ring.

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Quotes

Hologram Head: While officers gather evidence of the grisly crime scene, you can only ask yourselves, "What kind of lunatic would commit such unthinkable crimes?" The three adjectives which best describe this killer are sadistic, intelligent and dangerous.

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Connections

Featured in Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

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Soundtracks

"No Talking Just Head"
Featuring Deborah Harry
Written and Performed by Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, Jerry Harrison & T. 'Blast' Murray
Courtesy of Overland Productions

User Reviews

virtually forgettable escapades with Denzel & Russell

Virtual Reality gets a look, following in the footsteps of "The Lawnmower Man." If you saw "The Matrix"(99) and were wondering where you glimpsed the VR scenery years earlier, it may have been in this pic. Here, Denzel gets to briefly run around inside a VR world, chasing after virtual killer Russell Crowe, known as Sid 6.7 (very close to 6.66, isn't it?). Sid 6.7 is the latest computer program, a conglomeration of about 200 serial killers & mass murderers, and so advanced it's virtually self-aware. The bulk of the picture takes place in the real world, to which Sid 6.7 manages to escape to with the help of very advanced nanotechnology. I believe this was supposed to take place slightly in the future (1999), but from our perspective, it's old hat and square. Everything looks outmoded and just old, except the strangely hi-tech VR and nanites.

It's also interesting, from the modern perspective, to view an early role of Crowe's, before he hit the A-List. He doesn't have much to play with here. His character doesn't have the luxury of falling back on deep psychological reasons for his murderous ways, because he's inhuman. He's simply the latest software given locomotion in the semblance of a human body. He's programmed to be the way he is - there's no choice involved on his part. There's a brief mention of his program evolving once in the real world, but there's no actual evidence of that. Once in the real world, it's a simplistic chase & destroy mission, with Denzel the only one in the city trained to stop him. Denzel, just getting on the A-List a couple of years earlier, is standard action hero here, driven by a brutal tragedy from before the film begins. The motivations for a couple of key supporting characters are suspect; the designer of Sid 6.7, for example, turns out to be almost as psychotic, but it's hard to believe no one noticed this before (was he influenced by the software?). Fichtner, as a government aide, has the most thankless role, as an idiotic bureaucrat. The child actress playing the daughter of Lynch's character went on to teenage bombshell roles in TV series, the latest being "Charmed."