I am sure many people probably saw this PBS made film back in the day because back when it was made there were less channels and stuff and sometimes it was either something like this or nothing! Granted, I am sure a majority of people chose the latter. I saw this film thanks to the cult television show Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I am quite sure a good number of people were exposed to it for the first time thanks to the show. Even those who may have seen bits and pieces of it back in the day, probably did not witness the whole thing until it was featured on MST3K because I just cannot see anyone making it through all the jumbled mess that this film consisted of. Though, I just said it was a film, but it is not shot on film...rather it looks as if it were recorded on a camcorder. They did manage to land Raul Julia, but he was not as big when this one came out as he would later become. Then again, he did star in Street Fighter so he may not be too picky about parts; however, he had a sweet reason to be in Street Fighter and that was because I believe a nephew was a fan of the video game. Here, maybe he was a fan of PBS and thought he would star in this film and give it some merit. Which he probably did, as bad as it was, I do not think Mystery Science Theater would have even touched this thing without such a big star being in it.
The story, well it is kind of difficult to explain. This is probably due to several factors as I do not think this was a whole movie to begin with, but actually a film that had parts to it. Then there is the fact it was a MST3K episode, which means that it was probably further edited down to accommodate the show's run time. Still, even when you take into account this things the film is rather confusing. A future society where everyone works and are no longer able to watch cinemas like Casablanca. One man tires of the routine and finds a way to watch said film and others, though Casablanca is apparently the only one they were allowed to partly show. He gets caught and gets sent to rehab which consists of having his mind placed in a baboon. His body is lost because even in the future they do stupid things like allow children into areas they shouldn't be in and he is soon placed in the computer where he meets Rick and soon Aram Fingal (the hero) tries to interface with the computer while Apollonia James tries to help Fingal, but she also eats and gets fat off flav-o-fives while the fat man gets mad at Fingal messing around his computer! Aram and Rick are both played by Raul who does put some effort into his role here.
The film made for a very funny episode of MST3K as there is just a lot of things to make fun of. The strange names of the people and of certain things, the whole Casablanca setting in the computer and when Raul's character makes his moves on a blond. There is no shortage of things to riff here, which in turn makes this a very strong and consistent episode with no real weak spots within. The bumps were pretty good, with the one featuring Servo being doppeled being the highlight.
So no, this is not a film I would care to see without MST3K. Granted, there may be a few things one could gain as far as understanding the plot, but this thing is such a mess that I just do not believe seeing it uncut is going to help all that much. This was just one of those strange movies or whatever you wanna call it that would occasionally come on after you watched Sesame Street that bored you to tears, but you just did not have the ability to turn the television yet! Of course, I did learn something from this film and that is that the anteater is the most horrific animal ever!
