HOLOGRAM MAN (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

No one goes to PM Entertainment for well-conceived science-fiction societies, and HOLOGRAM MAN is in essence another near-future, low-budget flick derived from movies like ROBOCOP and TERMINATOR. However, the society in HOLOGRAM at least makes more sense than the one in the two CYBER TRACKER films.  

To be sure, anything one learns about this near-future world has to be acquired in the midst of running gun-battles. We're apparently in future-California, but we don't know anything of the rest of the world except that somehow, humans caused the destruction of the ozone layer. This put a repressive government under the control of one Jameson (Michael Nouri). In reaction to that repression, anarchist Slash Gallagher (Evan Lurie) organizes a small band of similar terrorists devoted to violent overthrow of the government. However, tough cop Decoda (Joe Lara) manages to stymie Gallagher and send him to prison. But in this future world, the government places convicts' bodies into statis while computers seek to reprogram the sinners into useful citizens.   

Years pass, and it's time for the prison parole board to review whether or not the reprogramming had the desired effect. Decoda, who would have preferred seeing Gallagher put down like the mad dog he is, attends the hearing, while both his girlfriend Natalie and her father serve as technicians in the process. However, elsewhere Gallagher's old gang engages a hacker to interfere with the computers. Bingo: not only has Gallagher not been reformed, he becomes a being of pure energy, a "phantom terminator" who can't be harmed by bullets or bombs. 

A little past the middle mark, Gallagher corners Decoda and Natalie at the computer building, shoots Decoda fatally, and leaves both cop and technician behind to be annihilated by a bomb. But Natalie apparently figured out what rogue process created the energy-Gallagher, so she puts the dying body of her boyfriend through the same treatment, making him into an energy-creature too. This leads to a big battle between cop and criminal, as well as getting rid of the tyrant who fomented the toxic situation.

For me the most interesting thing is that even though the hero becomes a super-powered being like the villain, I'm not sure Decoda counts as the main character. Aside from the rage the cop expresses at the callousness of both Gallagher and Jameson, Decoda is even more of a cipher than most action-heroes in flicks like this one. In contrast, Gallagher's psychotic persona gets much more attention, and though nothing he says is overly witty, the movie seems far more predicated on what happens when a hologram-- intended to be a neutral representation of a human psyche-- becomes infused with the evil of the psyche's owner. True, by the end of the story Decoda is the only surviving "hologram man," and I suppose he might go on crusading against evil a la the inhuman Robocop. But when his girlfriend asks what they should do in the wake of Jameson's demise, Decoda ends the film by throwing the power back to the people with one word: "Vote."

Not much humor in HOLOGRAM, but I did like it when one of the goons calls the hacker a "chip shit."