Virtuosity Preview

As Patrick and Kyle walk around the Natural History Museum, Patrick thinks to himself how he really should read more about dinosaurs cause they are rad. Or maybe now that he’s Stallone he should buy a dinosaur. “I have enough money to buy a dinosaur,” he says in wonder. “You sure do, Mr. Stallone. But that doesn’t explain what we are doing here,” Kyle says, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “Oh right!” Patrick remembers, “Uh… like… what if we bury instructions for whenever Jamie appears in the timeline. Then when he shows up you show him where it is.” Kyle considers this, it’s better than the dumb wormhole idea. “But how would I know it’s actually him? You already said that people are after whatever it is I have that can help you… so how do I know it’s not some bad guy pretending.” Patrick ponders for a moment, “You got a ‘puter?” 

Jamie finishes the Italian hoagie he found in Frank Stallone’s fridge. “So do you remember?” Kyle asks. “Remember what?” Jamie asks through the last mouthful of hoagie. Kyle shakes his head in frustration. He had told Kyle that food usually jogs his memory as they tried to figure out how to get him to prove he was Jamie after all. But just like the last ten things they tried, it seemed that Jamie wasn’t interested in that after all. It turns out he just wanted to eat a hoagie. “Don’t you want to get back to being Jamie?” He asks in frustration and the hesitation that Jamie gives to the question tells the whole tale. “All right, that’s it,” Kyle says, throwing his hands up, “you might not want to save the day, but I sure do, so it’s time for your worst nightmare.”

That’s right! We are diving deep into ‘puter madness by watching the megastar vehicle Virtuosity starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. I’ve never seen this film, which seems impossible, but I swear it’s true. Adding to the blockbuster week is the friend River of Death starring megastar (of my heart) Michael Dudikoff. Dudikoff is like my Charles Bronson. Everything he does is just pitch perfect action to the max. I love it. Let’s go!

Virtuosity (1995) – BMeTric: 45.9; Notability: 67

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 7.6%; Notability: top 1.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 23.6%; Higher BMeT: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Vampire in Brooklyn, Showgirls, Fair Game, Jury Duty, Congo, Batman Forever, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Theodore Rex, Judge Dredd, The Babysitter, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Nine Months, The Scarlet Letter, Johnny Mnemonic, Virtuosity; Higher Notability: Batman Forever, Congo, Judge Dredd, Cutthroat Island; Lower RT: The Big Green, National Lampoon’s Senior Trip, Delta of Venus, Theodore Rex, Jury Duty, The Walking Dead, Born to Be Wild, Top Dog, A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, The Hunted, It Takes Two, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Bushwhacked, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Fair Game, Vampire in Brooklyn, Canadian Bacon, The Scarlet Letter, Four Rooms, Jade, and 36 more; Notes: Solid notability. This is definitely one of the bigger 90s sci-fi films we were somehow missing. This is Cutthroat Island level which is insane. I should point out that we’ve seen the four bigger ones from 1995. And 12 of 18 films with higher BMeTric. We are really starting to work our way through some year’s top 20 BMeTric films.

RogerEbert.com – 3.0 stars – “Virtuosity” is an example of a struggle that goes on in Hollywood between formula and invention. The movie is filled with bright ideas and fresh thinking, but the underlying story is as old as the hills, right down to a final confrontation on catwalks (there is nothing quite like a catwalk for satisfying scenes in which characters hang by one arm, bash each other with pipes, fall to their dooms, etc.). What redeems “Virtuosity” a little is that even at the end, even in the midst of the action clichés, it still finds surprises in the paradox of a villain that is also a program.

(I like that we’ve hit a lot of films in this cycle that Ebert seems to have some affection for. I wonder if having a definitive time period just makes even trashy films a little bit more entertaining in some way. I don’t know.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEDdaStz4kw/

(Oh boy, they chose the wrong scene to sell the movie IMO. That scene in the mall is horrific. I would, I don’t know, start with indicating that the film stars Denzel Washington. Someday there will be a definitive list of films where someone yells “I am the future!”)

Directors – Brett Leonard – ( Known For: Man-Thing; The Dead Pit; Triumph; Feed; Future BMT: Hideaway; BMT: The Lawnmower Man; Virtuosity; Notes: Still working, although I can’t say I know most of his recent projects. Is tagged for a film called Dark Star which does not seem to be a remake of the more famous 70s film Dark Star.)

Writers – Eric Bernt – ( Known For: The Echo; BMT: Virtuosity; Romeo Must Die; Surviving the Game; Highlander: Endgame; Notes: Really not much about him online. Seems to do kind of futuristic or even like genre bending films in a way?)

Actors – Denzel Washington – ( Known For: The Little Things; Roman J. Israel, Esq.; The Equalizer; Inside Man; Training Day; Remember the Titans; The Tragedy of Macbeth; Flight; The Equalizer 2; American Gangster; The Magnificent Seven; The Book of Eli; Fences; Philadelphia; Safe House; Deja Vu; Much Ado About Nothing; The Manchurian Candidate; Glory; 2 Guns; Future BMT: Man on Fire; Fallen; The Bone Collector; John Q; Heart Condition; BMT: Virtuosity; Notes: Won two Oscars (and has been nominated 7 other times) for Training Day and Glory. Also nominated twice for Emmys. Probably up there as a top 10 living American Actor I would think.)

Russell Crowe – ( Known For: Thor: Love and Thunder; The Greatest Beer Run Ever; Gladiator; Robin Hood; Zack Snyder’s Justice League; Man of Steel; The Nice Guys; A Beautiful Mind; Les Misérables; L.A. Confidential; 3:10 to Yuma; American Gangster; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; Unhinged; Noah; Body of Lies; State of Play; The Quick and the Dead; Cinderella Man; The Insider; Future BMT: A Good Year; Broken City; Mystery, Alaska; Proof of Life; BMT: The Mummy; Virtuosity; Winter’s Tale; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor for The Mummy in 2018; Notes: From New Zealand, although he grew up in Australia. Won an Oscar for Gladiator, and was nominated for The Insider and A Beautiful Mind. Notably had some anger issues crop up over the years, specifically he threw a telephone at a hotel employee’s head IIRC.)

Kelly Lynch – ( Known For: Charlie’s Angels; On the Rocks; The Jacket; Drugstore Cowboy; Bright Lights, Big City; Kaboom; Passion Play; Homegrown; Three of Hearts; The Slaughter Rule; Normal Adolescent Behavior; The Visitation; The Frontier; Mercy; Imaginary Crimes; Glass Chin; Warm Summer Rain; Dallas 362; The Beans of Egypt, Maine; The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll; Future BMT: Curly Sue; Mr. Magoo; Rock the Kasbah; Desperate Hours; Heaven’s Prisoners; White Man’s Burden; Joe Somebody; BMT: Road House; Cocktail; Virtuosity; Notes: Still works a bit (she was in the television series Mr. Mercedes for example). Born in Minneapolis, and married to writer Mitch Glazer.)

Budget/Gross – $30 million / Domestic: $24,047,675 (Worldwide: $24,047,675)

(Disastrous all things considered. At least you can see where the money went: into the advanced computer graphics used throughout the film.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 30% (10/33): Woefully deficient in thrills or common sense, Virtuosity strands its talented stars in a story whose vision of the future is depressingly short on imagination.

(I guess that makes sense. I’m surprised there isn’t more about the acting (either that it is bad for a good actor like Washington, or good all things considered).)

Reviewer Highlight: Though Virtuosity connects all the dots to give audiences a roller-coaster ride, the movie begets nothing new: It’s stillborn. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Poster – Sklogosity

(You’d think I wouldn’t like this poster, but there is something new and yet classic about its look. I kinda love it. The colors don’t make a lot of sense, but it fits the film in that way. Love the font and the framing is beautiful. A.)

Tagline(s) – Justice needs a new program (C)

(I don’t know what that means. The poster was a hit. This is not. It sounds like a tagline, but it doesn’t have any juice to it. Not clever. Not interesting. Not objectively bad, but just blah.)

Keyword(s) – future

Top 10: The Matrix (1999), Interstellar (2014), Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Avatar (2009), Back to the Future (1985), V for Vendetta (2005), Avengers: Endgame (2019), WALL·E (2008), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Future BMT: 67.0 Thunderbirds (2004), 63.1 Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015), 60.6 Child’s Play 3 (1991), 50.8 Johnny Be Good (1988), 48.3 Megaforce (1982), 46.6 Voyagers (2021), 46.4 Mission to Mars (2000), 44.6 G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), 42.3 Red Planet (2000), 40.5 Yor: The Hunter from the Future (1983), 37.0 The Time Machine (2002), 35.2 The Ice Pirates (1984), 33.5 Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983), 33.4 Lockout (2012), 30.4 Mortal Engines (2018), 30.3 Push (2009), 29.9 Jetsons: The Movie (1990), 27.9 Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), 27.8 Total Recall (2012), 25.8 Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)

BMT: Battlefield Earth (2000), Dragonball Evolution (2009), Rollerball (2002), Barb Wire (1996), RoboCop 3 (1993), Ultraviolet (2006), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), Jason X (2001), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), After Earth (2013), A Sound of Thunder (2005), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Double Dragon (1994), Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), Wing Commander (1999), Ghosts of Mars (2001), Stealth (2005), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), Cyborg (1989), Doom (2005), Left Behind: The Movie (2000), Supernova (2000), Lost in Space (1998), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Geostorm (2017), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), Æon Flux (2005), Theodore Rex (1995), Judge Dredd (1995), Babylon A.D. (2008), Maximum Overdrive (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Virtuosity (1995), Friday the 13th Part III (1982), G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013), Brick Mansions (2014), Freejack (1992), Gamer (2009), Priest (2011), Solarbabies (1986), 2012 (2009), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), RoboCop 2 (1990), Fortress (1992), Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Soldier (1998), The Postman (1997), Transcendence (2014), Heartbeeps (1981), Predator 2 (1990), Paycheck (2003), Repo Men (2010), Impostor (2001), The Space Between Us (2017), Event Horizon (1997), Demolition Man (1993), Vanilla Sky (2001)

(No sub-cycle here because we were just switching it up in the end and going back to the future! I was screaming Jack style “WE HAVE TO GO BACK!” and Jamie finally relented.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 14) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: William Forsythe is No. 5 billed in Virtuosity and No. 5 billed in 88 Minutes, which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (5 + 5) + (3 + 1) = 14. If we were to watch The Bone Collector we can get the HoE Number down to 10.

Notes – According to Kelly Lynch, she and Denzel Washington were supposed to kiss. However, Washington had the scene dropped because he felt an interracial love scene would hurt the film’s box-office chances.

The ‘Star Trek’ episode shown briefly is Star Trek: The Original Series: The Enemy Within (1966), an episode about Captain Kirk being split into good and evil sides by the transporter.

Amongst the names of serial killers shown in Sid 6.7’s personality profile are David Koresh, Thomas McIlvane, Frederick Cowan, William Bonin, Harvey Glatman, Peter Kuten, William Bryan Cruse, Charles Whitmore, Aileen Carol Wournos, Peter Sutcliffe, Kenneth McDuff, Jesse James, Dr. Glennon Engleman, Harvey Carignan, Dr. Geza de Kaplany, Norman Selby, Juan Peron, Winnie Ruth Judd, Matthew Grimes, Augosto Pinoche, Carl Panzram, Abu Nidal, Ted Bundy, Wesley Allan Dodd, Roger Dale Stafford, Elizabeth Borden, Mark Essex, Billy the Kid, Lynette Fromme, Larry Eyler, Clem Henderson, David Hendricks, Coral Eugene Watts, William McDonald, Richard Trenton Chase, Sirhan Sirhan, Josef Mengele, Ed Kemper, Edward Leonski, John Collins, Julian Knight, John Haigh, Carlton Gary, Vaughn Greenwood, Nicolae Ceausescu, Randy Kraft, Miguel Rivera, Dean Allen Corli, William Suff, Werner Boost, Thierry Paulin, Richard Trenton Chase, David Burke, Donald Harvey, Vernon Butts, Bruno Hauptman, Ralph Jerome Selz, John Duffy, Carl Weiss, Gerald Eugene Stano, Benito Mussolini, Paul Calden, Richard Farley, Ian Brady, Joseph Harris, Hiro Hito, Lynwood C. Drake, Saddam Hussein, Gilles De Rais, Herman Mudgett, Donald Nielson, Robert R. Diaz, and Joe Ball.

Action editor Billy Weber was brought in by Paramount to deliver a new cut of the film, after the initial cut was rejected. For his efforts, he is thanked in the film’s closing credits.

Paramount Pictures considered casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as Parker Barnes, but his hefty price tag quickly put him out of contention.

The music video of “The Photograph Kills” by Russell Crowe & 30 Odd Foot of Grunts was filmed on the set of the film between scenes, which Russell Crowe appears in the music video in costume and in character as Sid 6.7 and the music videos features inserts from the film itself. The song is featured in the scene which Sid 6.5 arrives at Madison’s house to kidnap Karin.

Russell Crowe was added to the cover of later VHS/DVD editions of the film, since he had become a bigger star since the initial release of the film.

One of the objects shown floating in Sid’s virtual world is a bust made from a ribbon-like spiral. This is a direct nod to the illustration work of the pioneering 4-D artist M. C. Escher.

According to William Fichtner, about 80% of his scenes never made the final cut.

Ken Shamrock can be seen fighting in the octagon. Former ufc and wwf champion

Kelly Cuoco plays Kelly Lynch’s daughter.