Vice

I've been around a long time and have seen A lot of movies. I would have to say that this "movie" is easily in my top 5 of Worst Movies EVER. All the negative reviews are spot on. I would imagine that anyone rating this over 5 is either fake or is possibly listed somewhere on the credits...which, by the way, were more enjoyable to watch than the movie itself.

I watched this movie for free but for the first time in my life I feel compelled to ask someone for my money back. Yes, it's THAT BAD!

PS. I have never posted a movie review before so it took forever for me to find a way to post one on IMDb. I was first using my iPhone. Spent 15 minutes and couldn't find it so I fired up my laptop, spent 4 minutes locating the right link to push. I mention this because I needed to add more lines of text for my review to be posted AND I wanted you to understand how serious I was about finding a way to post this review. It is that bad of a movie!

I'm learning something. Anytime DirecTv says this movie is available same day as it comes out in theaters...it's going to suck royally. Watched Vice on PPV on demand and found myself rolling my eyes a lot. This movie could have been one of those quiet noir flicks that says very little in the way of dialogue, just let the shots tell the story. Instead some two bit writer tried to be way too clever. Bad attempts at humor and in one case an insensitive punch line inserted at one of the possibly heart tugging points in the movie. It's west world it's bladerunner its i robot all thrown in a blender and submitted as a script to the film school professor. It got a F- and a 10 million dollar budget. Welcome to Hollywood. Everyone in the movie except the cop seemed like an "artificial".

Porno quality acting, porno quality actresses, porno quality dialog. gigantic plot holes, zero internal logic, ridiculous overuse of automatic weapons, bad science and disrespect for the laws of physics, poor CGI, rotten set design, bad lighting, yada, yada.

Oddly enough, the sound,editing,and cinematography were professionally acceptable.

The makers of this film have no respect for science fiction and were just attempting to make a cheap comic book movie. Unfortunately, they didn't have the funds or imagination. The result compares unfavorably with the average movie made for the syfi channel.

Thomas Jayne was obviously embarrassed to be in this since he obscured his looks in shambling meth addict wardrobe and makeup. Bruce Willis didn't have that luxury so he was forced to show his disdain by delivering his lines deadpan like a first table reading of the script.

When it comes to lower budget film releases, the movie genre to probably have the most trouble looking anywhere near authentic is in the realm of science fiction. Most science fiction films today require a lot of heavy CGI and high tech gadgetry in order to look somewhat presentable for its genre and the audience viewing it. However, people tend to forget how ambitious their plans may be and the error of their ways ends up showing up in the end product. For this particular feature though, this is only one of a number of issues that is noticeable. Directed by Brian A. Miller, this would-be sci-fi thriller has a tough time throwing out any original ideas to the table that haven't already been used. Writers Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore (both San Andreas (2015)) don't seem to have a full grasp on what exactly they wanted the movie get across.

The story takes place in some undated future where a new society arises called Vice. Established by a man named Julian (Bruce Willis), Vice was created as an outlet for the public, so that for any fantasy they wanted to make for themselves was possible. That meant no laws, no government, no responsibilities and no consequences. Making sure that any acts of violence were performed humanely, the company made A.I. units who looked, acted and lived like normal human beings but underneath there was software and electronics. After one A.I. unit named Kelly (Ambyr Childers) begins having repeated flashbacks of past events, she flees with Vice security on her tail hoping that Kelly won't reveal to the public a unit became self aware. Also following closely behind is Roy Tadeski (Thomas Jane), a lone cop who's not too fond of Vice for generic reasons pertaining to the attitudes people end up adopting after leaving the facility.

Writing wise, it isn't the absolute worst but it isn't well thought out either. The screenplay tries to tackle a number of social and idealistic issues by borrowing ideas from older films like Westworld (1973), RoboCop (1987) and even The Purge (2013), but much of it is just underdeveloped and underplayed. The actors themselves are okay at best but you would figure, both Thomas Jane and Bruce Willis, who both have enough experience to act would make some kind of an impression. Thomas Jane has a couple of humorous moments in the film but much of it is just him mumbling through a toothpick. Willis is even more disappointing because his role really just feels like a call in. It would actually be more appropriate to say that Ambyr Childers as the rogue unit and Bryan Greenberg, who plays an important character in the plot, are far more interesting to watch than the two veterans previously mentioned. The story itself is not new but it can be tolerated. What isn't tolerated is how it was executed like a standard cat and mouse chase.

Because the majority of characters are quite predictable, there isn't much tension to be found among the scenes that have time constraining ordeals. Another aspect to this movie that isn't exploited properly are the sci-fi elements. Of everything described previously involving A.I. units and software, there is only one scene that looks remotely scientific. This involves rewiring a fuse inside a unit. The rest of the would-be science fiction like A.I. scenes are all done indirectly. An example of this is when Kelly receives an upgrade, which is done off screen. How disappointing - that's really trying to stretch the audiences' gullibility. The other major component that is sorely lacking any exploration is the paradise of Vice itself. The only thing audiences get to see in Vice are acts of murder, drinking and sex. Yeah these are pretty much the kinds of things most people would want to get away with, but with no laws wouldn't there be more to that? Surely someone would be more creative do something crazier than that, of which isn't it kind of the whole point?

Also how does a visitor to Vice know the difference between a human and a unit? There really wasn't any explanation given. The only science fiction like credit that can be given is the set production to the film. At least that looked somewhat apocalyptic in some respects and they didn't look cheap either. The shootouts are alright but nothing inventive. The part that worked against that however was the cinematography shot by Yaron Levy. There were two things Levy kept doing that will probably annoy the viewers. First, there are two many shots with dutch and other cockeyed angles. The second is that when Levy's camera is lateral, the camera keeps doing rotating 360 circumference shots. This is better than shaky camera by far but still frustrating at times. The film score however was better than expected. Composed by a trio of artists who call themselves Hybrid did an okay job. There was no main theme but they did have a number of tracks that worked, especially the ones involving Ambyr Childers and Bryan Greenberg. The thing I can't believe is that the filmmakers actually thought that this movie would get a sequel with an extremely obvious cliffhanger.

Its set production and music display decent quality with okay acting by the main cast but it's more of a time waster than it is worth a watch. The writing is below average, the camera-work is frustrating at best, the action is too standard and the science fiction elements are barely used for a story based on it.

The premise is fresh and exciting, but what exactly happened to this movie is beyond me. Every time I watch a movie that has potential, star power, and a great central idea which then sinks slowly into a bog of stench, I immediately point fingers at the unimaginative types of Hollywood, namely the executives who think their ideas are cool, hip, fresh, exciting, and deserve to be in what was possibly a great script that got passed around the executives toilets on a rainy day when their lunch with Ray Liotta got cancelled.

One name I call these executives is, "The Scriptinators".

Whether or not they were responsible here, I do not know, all I know is the central idea of this movie needs to be lifted and planted into another movie that could utilise its full potential, because Vice had something going for it, and then stuck its head In the title.